


Simple Choices

by Kitcat300



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Everyone deserved better than they got in that finale, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends to Lovers, Heartbreak, I know it's been done a hundred times but this is my version, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, christmas isn't cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:36:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitcat300/pseuds/Kitcat300
Summary: Lucy can't live with Flynn's death in 2012 so she makes a simple choice.  Unfortunately for her and the team her change doesn't stop the emotional consequences of their entire fight against Rittenhouse playing out.  It also doesn't get rid of Emma.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston, Jessica Logan/Wyatt Logan, Rufus Carlin/Jiya
Comments: 92
Kudos: 108





	1. Margins of Error

**Author's Note:**

> I've messed with time travel rules just a little so please forgive me. Thanks in advance for reading.

“Help!” Lucy shouted as the Lifeboat door cycled open. At least she hoped she shouted. It could have been a low groan for all she knew. The vice inside her head squeezed all coherent thought out, only leaving room for the pain. Endless waves of pain. 

There was movement and noise, so loud it made her sick, but she held onto it. Sick meant alive. You couldn’t be sick if you were dead.

“Flynn.” She tried, her tongue weighing more than her whole head and impossible to wield. Her eye lids weighed just about the same but through sheer force of will she managed to crack them open. Scorching white light exploded around her before everything went dark.

***

“I’d like to propose a toast. To Flynn.” From Connor.

“He had our backs. He sacrificed himself so we could defeat Rittenhouse together. Let’s not let him down. We owe him that.” From Wyatt.

“To Garcia.” Connor again.

***

Her brain was being crushed from the inside out but she could hear noises around her. Beeps, bleeps, some sort of hissing. Utter gibberish but actual, distinct sounds. She tried to focus but the effort nearly sent her under again. Beep, bleep. Beep, bleep. Long hiss. In a steady pattern. Over and over again.

Lucy wasn’t sure she dared to attempt opening her eyes but she needed to know. Fluorescent lights confronted her, stark and excruciating. No help at all. 

She tried to speak but there was something in her mouth. She couldn’t swallow it, or move around it, couldn’t move at all.

Her hands didn’t rise, her body like lead. The noises got faster. Her head began to spin. She was stuck. Paralysed. Trapped. 

A sharp pain pierced her for a second before everything stopped again.

***

They didn’t clink their glasses in their toast. Instead they nodded towards the action, half-hearted and awkward. There should have been tears, at the very least sincerity, but its absence walked amongst them like the ghost of the man to whom they paid tribute.

She tried to be fair. Lucy Preston was always fair. At least to others. Half of the room was from a different timeline. The other half had their own issues. Everyone had baggage. So much damn baggage.

Jiya - kidnapped, stuck in the 1880’s, Rufus. Lord. She’d suffered so much it was a miracle she could raise her glass at all. 

Connor – inventor of a time machine that was being systematically used to amend history in Rittenhouse’s favour. He’d lost everything. Then he’d lost Rufus too.

Denise - working outside of her remit, hiding the team from her bosses, aiding in the escape of a wanted terrorist. The potential disaster she lived with, daily, was extreme.

Wyatt – who’d lost his wife. Twice. He’d killed for her, betrayed everyone for her, defended her until it was impossible to do otherwise. Then he’d concluded that she had to die again.

Rufus – dear God, Rufus. Back from the dead with no memories of the past six months. Holding a glass to toast the man who’d had him shot, who’d ultimately saved him and Jiya.

The paper in Lucy’s hand rustled. It was all that was left. Ink and two pieces of paper. The man who had written them was just … gone.

***

“Lucy?” She recognised the voice but couldn’t place it. “Lucy? Can you hear me?”

There was still the background noise, although the hissing seemed to be gone. And the man speaking to her. 

“Come on, Luce, open your eyes.”

She didn’t really want to but she wanted him to stop speaking. The ricochet in her brain was nauseating. 

“There you are.” A brown haired, blue eyed, boyish man leaned over her, a smile lighting up his features. 

She knew the face but his name eluded her.

“The Doc said you’d come too quickly. You scared the hell out of us.”

“You are one crazy lady.” Said another voice. She couldn’t find the energy to turn her head but relief flared at the sound, a half-forgotten fear evaporating. “Next time let me do the piloting, ok? That scratch on the Lifeboat is never going to smooth out.” 

_“Do you want to get Rufus back, or what?”_

Echo’s from another time.

Rufus. 

Rufus was alive. Wyatt was there too.

Her mouth felt like she’d been chewing on cotton but, “Flynn?”

Wyatt’s eyes hardened, his face taking on that bull headed look he got.

“Flynn.” She tried again, ignoring all the warning signals her body was giving and attempting to sit up.

The room swung at a breakneck speed, causing her to retch on an empty stomach. Concerned noises ensued but they didn’t matter because everything was getting darker, until she sank into the blissfully quiet depths.

***

She’d spent more time over-analysing her response to a first year students essay then she did researching her destination. There’d only been three choices anyway. The logical one was the closest to his point of arrival, with less margin for error.  
The hard part had been waiting, hoping that Rittenhouse didn’t launch before she could act.

It had been easy to move through the bunker unnoticed. After all, she’d been doing it for months. With everyone asleep it had been a simple matter of disconnecting the power cable and programming in the auto-piolet co-ordinates. The riskiest moment was when she engaged the launch sequence. All that noise in the quiet alerted everyone, but by the time they reached the hanger it was too late.

Time travel was always awful. A little metal box distorting its-self and its occupants out of the natural course of things. Time travel into your own timeline was a whole other nightmare, the normal nausea ramped up exponentially, that feeling of not belonging to your own body so intense it took a good minute for her to work out how to use her hands again.

San Diego’s cold air felt more like a slap than a relief, the ground beneath her feet undulating as the sand moved beneath her weight. The stars hovered in the cloudless sky, never quite still as she tried to get her bearings.   
With the aim of being as unobtrusive as possible, Lucy had chosen to land a half mile or so from the site of Jessica’s demise. There was no point in alerting everyone to her presence. It did, however, mean she needed to navigate her way to the road and then further, to Flynn. Not exactly an easy feat when the whole world was spinning in the wrong direction. 

She’d crawl if she had to.

Every scratch from the scrubby brush of half dead plants felt like a miniature flaying. Even holding her head still the edges of her vision swam. A jack hammer had taken residence somewhere in her frontal lobe.   
Lucy tried hard not to remember what Connor had said happened to people stupid enough to attempt this type of time travel.

_Suck it up. If Future Lucy had done it, so then could she. One foot in front of the other. Remember why you’re doing this. What you are fighting for._

***

She was alone when she opened her eyes this time, the machines from before blissfully absent. Maybe in a week or so she’d be happy to take the world off mute, but for now the silence was everything. And very short lived.

“You’re awake.” Denise stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her conservative navy suit.

Lucy dared a glance around but they were alone.

“I should have you court marshalled, or arrested or…” the bluster didn’t hide the concern in the older woman’s eyes. “Stealing the Lifeboat. Lucy! What were you thinking? And travelling into your own timeline!” Fine hands rubbed at her brow, smoothing the worry lines that were taking up permanent residence. “Did he coerce you in some way?”

It took a minute before Lucy caught the gist of Denise’s thought. “No.” 

“You are lucky to be alive.” The young lady was implied.

“Flynn?”

“That’s all you have to say? You’ve been in the hospital for three days, risked exposing us all to Rittenhouse and who knows who else?” Lazer-like eyes targeted her, care of the NSA handbook recommendations and probably a lot of motherly experience. 

It should have caused guilt, maybe forced a stuttering rebuttal. Instead, like a stuck tape unable to skip forward, she asked again, “Where’s Flynn?”

Denise all but threw up her hands in despair.

***

“Lucy?” He looked for all the world as though he didn’t believe his own eyes. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe hallucination was how the brain began turning to mush when you crossed your own timeline. She’d find out soon enough. “What the hell are you doing?” His accent was thick, harsh with emotion.

“I could ask you the same question.” The six feet between them seemed more like an ocean.

Doubt skittered through him, making him swallow before asking, “Is Rufus..?”

“He’s alive.”

His shoulders straightened, a weight lifted. “So it all worked out.”

Empty toasts. False regrets. Platitudes that lacked emotion. “Depends how you look at it.”

If she hadn’t been completely frozen inside the look he gave her would have brought her to her knees. Compassion, resignation, and that unholy streak that was just Flynn. “It’s better this way.”

Her fingers curled into a fist.

“Why?” She glared. “Because of something I write in a journal? Tell you what, I’ll hop back to 2018, write the damm thing and make sure to include that if you’re stupid enough to believe in a ‘noble suicide’ option I will personally shoot you in the kneecaps. How does that sound?”

His eyes shifted sideways. “This isn’t suicide.” 

He really believed that?

“What would you call deliberately staying in a place where you knew you were going to die when you had the option of leaving?”

He had the gall to look as though she was the one losing her mind. “The things I’ve done…”

“Aren’t exactly exclusive to you.”

He shrugged, regrouped, tried again. “You know that I …”

“Stole a time machine? Wyatt did that too. So have I. Killed people? That would be everyone but Connor I think. Been a dramatic, sarcastic ass? That one’s definitely on you. Get over it.” 

He went to take a step forward but swayed before he could, his face contorting for a moment. He had to shake his head before he managed, “I wanted to put things right.”

“So you said.”

That stopped him. He raised soulful green brown eyes to hers before looking away. “You read the letter.”

She waited. 

“Then why..?” There was no expectation in the question, merely curiosity, as though his letter had explained everything and her failure to follow its somewhat simplistic instructions – be happy, have a family, forgive – was somehow inconceivable.

_Better not to think of the letter._

Instead she went with, “You told me we’d make quite the team someday.”

His dark brow lowered.

“You said we can save the people we love.” At least he looked a little thrown. “How’s that’s working out for you because Amy’s still gone?”

Regret twisted his features, “Lucy, I…”

Even heartfelt apologies were, ultimately, just words. Another time she’d dwell on them, but right now she had bigger fish to fry.

“They found your body in the dunes about four miles from here.” In the sand. A soulless shell. “I don’t know how you managed it but they didn’t identify you in the autopsy.” Her turn to swallow. “There are photographs.”

“It’s…”

“If you say ‘for the best’ I swear I’ll shoot you.” She levelled the gun he had, ironically, taught her to fire, working hard to control the fine tremor in her hands. “It’s time to go home now.”

The word ‘home’ gripped him, his eyes growing round, intention plain. “My girls.” A wobble in his voice. “They’re only a couple of miles from here.”

She wanted to feel sympathy, empathy, anything, but the ice in her veins was absolute. “And in two years Rittenhouse will break into your home and murder them. Again.” Something had to get through to him. “You can’t save them like this.”

His face cracked, all the loss he’d bottled up inside raged, finally free. Almost in slow motion, his whole mountainous frame fell forwards, his knees hitting the floor, sheer instinct stopping him from lying down in the dirt. His voice was a broken howl to the moon, “I can’t save them at all.”

Tears pooled in Flynn’s eyes before sliding down his cheeks and through to the cold that lived inside of her. Their salt resisted the freeze that sought to consume them and instead tried valiantly to melt through to anything left behind. 

Once, several timelines ago, she had been terrified of this creature before her. With his dramatic disregard for everything she held precious, slicing his way through history, burning down anything and everything to achieve his goal. They’d both changed since then – who hadn’t – but never in her wildest imaginings could she have believed that they would meet here. As equals. 

Carefully kneeling beside him, gun lowered but not discarded, she placed a hand beneath his chin, waiting until he looked at her.

“I can’t promise you we’ll get them back.” Their breath mixed, his fire and her ice melding together. “But I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to help you bring them back.” Her eyes held his, willing him to believe her. “I won’t leave you here to die alone, Flynn. If you can’t, or won’t come with me, fine. But either we both go or we both stay. Your choice.”

***

The bunker was exactly as she remembered it. Surely the least the new timeline could have done is given them a place with better heating or, you know, somewhere that looked less like a concrete tomb? But no. Even the god awful couch was the same.

At the sound of the outside door opening everyone had rushed to greet her. Rufus and Jiya, joined at the hip, swallowed her in a bear hug. Connor had folded her in next. Wyatt brought up the rear, his hands lingering, remaining close even after they separated. She tolerated it all, her eyes scanning the room until she saw him.

He needed the wall for support. It was written in the angles of his face, in the careful way he held himself. His eyes were careful too. Careful to observe the reunion, careful to note the soldier by her side, careful in watchfulness. Waiting. Assessing.

“Could he be more creepy?” Wyatt spoke the words loud enough to be heard two states over, looking at Lucy with that puppy dog expression, certain of her agreement. “He’s got to go, Luce. I mean, I know you said we needed him but after everything that’s happened...” He paused, shrugged, “I’m not living with Jess’ killer.” As though he hadn’t suggested it. As if he hadn’t been relieved it wasn’t him.

Lucy’s eyes never left Flynn. She saw his chest rise and fall, reaffirming that he was alive. Felt again that thing, so fragile and fine but unbreakable, which had caught her off guard at the Hindenburg. That tether which, no matter what she’d tried, had made her confront him despite her instincts to flee, had made her defy the beast that raged before her until finally fragments of the man began to emerge. She understood now. The darkness. The hollow void where even anger burned to ash. 

“You didn’t tell them?” Her words were to him. For him. The first proper sentence she’d spoken this lifetime.

His sardonic, sarcastic lip quirk said it all.

The room was hers, all eyes swivelling her way. “Flynn didn’t kill Jess.” The collective gasp as they all jumped over the same cliff, judging her but trying not to, until her words halted the twist of emotions. 

“He let her go.”


	2. Risk

Everyone talked at the same time. The words didn’t matter. Nothing much mattered these days. Lucy stayed where she was, the centre of the storm as arms gesticulated, the cacophony rising and falling as implications and doubts surfaced. Flynn held position too, looking only at her.

(There were things he needed to say but now wasn’t the time. Oh, he could move her to one side to speak, or wait until the others were asleep, but she wasn’t ready to listen, wasn’t in any fit state to hear. One strong gust of wind and she’d break, forever lost. So he waited.)

“Lucy.” Wyatt turned her by her shoulders, holding her upper arms tight. “Jess is dead.”

_Slumped on the corridor floor, face battered, heart bruised beyond recognition, as he sat beside her. “I messed everything up. Just like I did with us. I love you Lucy. Rufus wanted me to admit it.”_

“I know that in our timeline Rittenhouse brought her back…”

“Wait. What???” Rufus’ eyes nearly burst out of their sockets.

“But Rufus is alive.” He reached out to grab the other man, pulling him into Lucy’s line of vision. “Look.”

Rufus tried to stare at both of them at once. “So… Jessica being alive somehow means I die? That’s not good, right?”

“Long story.” Wyatt dismissed, still fixed on making his point. “We talked about it and we all agreed. That’s why Flynn took the Lifeboat, so he could close that loop. Although Lord knows why the two of you chose to go back there.”

The universe apparently had a sense of humour in what it allowed others to remember.

When she didn’t respond Wyatt went further. “I saw her body Luce.” He glared over his shoulder at Flynn.

“Body?” Denise pipped up. “The body was never discovered.”

“So she’s definitely…” Agent Christopher’s words sank in. “Ma’am?”

Turning to the nearest terminal and tapping a few keys Denise brought up Jessica’s file. The crime scene photos screamed trauma, disturbed foliage, scuffs in the sand, enough blood to paint with, but no body. She read aloud, “Jessica Logan, missing, presumed dead February 11th 2012\. Initial investigation revealed a life threatening amount of blood lost at the scene but no body was ever recovered.”

Wyatt’s hands loosened their grip, falling to his side as he sought to understand. “But she was strangled.” He ran his hand over his hair, took a deep breath, then another, before finding focus and then rage.

“What did you do?” He shouted, charging at Flynn. The older man braced but fell on impact, still weakened. He curled up to protect himself as Wyatt launched a kick at his gut, waiting for the foot to retract before he grabbed it and pulled the Delta Force soldier down to his level.

_Flynn pinned to a wall as Wyatt tried to land punch after punch, never quite hitting his target. His elbow flying backwards in rage, slamming into Lucy’s lip._

The gunshot surprised even Lucy, although why, seeing as she’d pulled the trigger, she wasn’t sure.

“Get off him.”

***

The Logan car was long gone before Lucy reached the scene. She thought she heard a shot but the low level of night-time noises continued unabated, so she couldn’t be sure. The way the world was beginning to stretch at the edges was alarming. Her legs felt more like jelly with every step. Still she moved forward. She had a _reason_.

At first she thought she was imagining what she saw until she managed to get a little closer and their voices began to carry. It was a testament to how badly the travel was affecting Flynn that he didn’t hear her approach, or how stunned Jessica was that she didn’t notice either.

“I came back to kill you.” Flynn aimed the gun point blank but didn’t fire.

“What’s stopping you?” Jessica was all bravado, none of the wide eyed innocence she’d pulled with Wyatt in recent times, eyes searching the darkness for an escape.

For a moment Flynn didn’t answer and Lucy was convinced he was going to fire but instead he said, “I should kill you. I can’t help but think…”

“That you can talk me to death? If you’re going to kill me just do it.”

That brought a dark chuckle. “This side of you is better.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Quite possibly. I am certainly about to do something that I know to be insane.”

Jessica tapped her foot in frustration. “I should have broken your neck while I had the chance.”

“You had a good try.” Flynn shrugged, his cowboy suit a throwback to time from which he’d come. “See if you can hold your tongue for a minute and just listen. I have a cautionary tale to tell you.”

The young woman rolled her eyes but remained quiet.

“Rittenhouse saved your brother.” Jessica froze. “In exchange you had to work for them. Maybe they even raised you. Whatever path it took it led you to your husband, Wyatt Logan, who at the time of press is a drunken asshole with jealousy issues. Correct?”

Jessica stayed mute but Flynn continued. “Tonight you got a message to get out of the car you were travelling in. It came from a Rittenhouse agent who was sent to protect you from what was supposed to be your death.”

The colour left the blonde’s cheeks. “You read his phone!” She accused before thinking through the other things Flynn had said. “You’re not Rittenhouse. How do you know this? Are you stalking me?”

Another dark chuckle. “You were working at a bar and your husband decided you were flirting with another man. It lead to an argument and a bar fight, as well as you being suspended from work for a week. In the car just now you told Wyatt the six months you were on a break were the best of your life.”

He had her absolute attention. “After tonight Rittenhouse will tell you to go back to Logan and for the next five years you will endure a stormy relationship until he disappears for six months only to return like a different man. He’ll tell you wild stories about how he’s not from your timeline and that in his timeline you died. Tonight. A story Rittenhouse will already have told you.”

If he’d told her that aliens were about to land she couldn’t have looked more bemused. “To prove himself Wyatt will take you to a secret location where you will discover everything he said was true. You’ll collect as much information about the people in that safe house as you can and then kidnap one of those people. Once that last roll of the dice occurs everything that happens next ultimately leads back here, to me with a gun pointed at you.”

“I don’t… You can’t… This doesn’t make any sense.”

Jessica was doing far better with Flynn’s ‘prophet from the future speech’ than Lucy ever had.

“The man I was when I began on my path here wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you.” Which went to show how far he’d come. “He would have pulled the trigger and moved on without a second thought.” Flynn shook his head, either in self-depreciation or to clear it. Lucy couldn’t say which. “You should be glad I’m not that man anymore.”

“You’re not?”

“A woman refused to let that be the end of me. She reached out and gave me a second chance even though I didn’t deserve it. This is me paying that forwards.”

“You’re giving me a second chance?”

Flynn shook his head again, “I’m giving you a choice. Stay with Rittenhouse and this happens all over again, but ends in your death. Or leave them. Leave everything and find a different path.”

***

As kitchens went the one in the bunker was cold, both in temperature and ambience. It was, perhaps, colder still with the echo of a gunshot persistent in everyone’s ear.

“So Jessica was dead, then alive, then dead, then alive? Anyone else getting dizzy?” Rufus asked, breaking the silence. “And could someone please explain how this means I was dead? I mean obviously not now but, if it’s tied to Jessica’s death, and she’s not dead does that mean…? Woah. Head trip.”

Jiya slouched into one of the hardest chairs ever made, arms crossed. Flynn nursed an icepack under his ribs, looking out of the corner of his eye at Lucy who started off into the distance, wrapped tightly in her pilfered jumper.

“Obviously things have changed.” Connor tried. “For all of us. Are we sure there are no changes to the timeline outside of here? Could Rittenhouse…”

“They visited 1980 briefly which changed things with Jessica.” Jiya cut in. “Unless someone’s totally screwed with the space time continuum their sole purpose was her resurrection.” Her eyes, flashed to Rufus, double checking he was still there. “After the change the team went to Salem, met JFK, went back to the deep south 1930’s, visited the 1919 Women’s Sufferage Movement, saved Agent Christopher and met Harriet Tubman. All that check out?”

Chinatown was a notable exclusion on her list.

“Er,” Connor thought for a moment. “Yes. I met Robert Johnson. Did that happen for you?” They nodded and he smiled, probably remembering his ‘yeah’ on the recording.

“It still doesn’t explain how I died.”

_Rufus’ hands welling with blood. Burning rage that overrode everything. Adrenaline spiking as she sprinted after the retreating red-head. The useless click of an empty gun._

Lucy looked to Jiya, who remained stonily silent.

“There is no way she’s alive.” Wyatt interrupted, fixated. “I mean, how do you explain all the blood?”

All eyes turned to Flynn. “The Rittenhouse agent who’d been sent to pick her up had blood bags in his car, ready to stage the scene.”

Wyatt sneered. “They had DNA testing six years ago.”

“Jessica had been donating blood once every four months for quite some time. She claimed it was Rittenhouse policy.”

A fist slammed into the table. “If she was alive she would have found a way to let me know.”

“Why?” Lucy’s voice was quiet, almost as though she had spoken aloud unintentionally.

Wyatt looked at her, aghast. “She was my wife! There is no way,” He stood to emphasis his point, “No way she would have left me thinking she was dead!”

Agent Christopher stared at him pointedly and he flopped back down.

“She would if she believed Flynn.”

“Lucy…”

“She knew what would happen if she stayed with Rittenhouse or if she stayed with you. Flynn was very specific as to where those actions would take her.” For a moment the old Lucy tried to break free, anger edging her voice, before the ice came back, colour fading back to shades of grey.

“But…”

“As far as we know she’s free of Rittenhouse now, possibly off living her best life or something. And because she chose to listen to Flynn both she and Rufus are alive. Shouldn’t we be celebrating that?”

Nobody was dumb enough to offer an answer.

***

Who was sleeping with who caused a temporary upset before they all turned in. At least it caused some people an upset. Lucy’s only mandate was that, regardless of what this brave new world suggested, she wasn’t sharing a room with Wyatt. Or Jiya and Rufus. Or Connor. Not even Flynn, although she was tempted, to make sure he didn’t have any more insane ideas.

The couch had been fine before – uncomfortable, cold and just plain small – and it would be fine again. After all, no one had objected when she’d taken it last time.

Wyatt had tried to speak to her when the others had left, trailing away to find their own spaces to digest what was new, what had changed. Flynn had looked at her, seeing far too much, waited for her minute nod before leaving.

“This doesn’t change anything between us.” Wyatt had said, moving closer, ghosting a finger over her cheek.

And he was right. Whether Jessica was alive or dead changed nothing.

“I meant what I said,” a shrug, “and here we’re apparently already together. We’re the only ones who remember the other timeline. It makes no sense not to grab this chance.” As he’d moved closer still. “And if Jess is out there somewhere, well,” He’d looked through Lucy for a moment, squared his shoulders, “She was still Rittenhouse. And she left me. I can’t just forget that.”

He’d leaned forwards then and placed his lips on hers. Lucy had remained still, unflinching, totally unable to feel.

He’d pulled back, looked at her and tried again. “You know I’ve always loved you. Even when Jessica was alive and living in the bunker. Those feelings never went away. I know they didn’t disappear for you either.”

Objectively, when he’d kissed her a second time, his lips were soft if wet. Realistically she could have kissed him back. But even when he moved to slide his hands into her hair, used his tongue to part her lips she felt … nothing.

He’d left with a look over his shoulder, with a ‘you know where to find me’, without a clue.

So, in the cold cavernous living area, cramped up on the too small couch, listening to the hum of the lights, and the fridge, and the computers, and the Lifeboat, the nothingness clawed its way out, wrapping her in shrink-wrap so tight that no matter how hard she fought she couldn’t get free, couldn’t breathe. Amy was gone. Her mother was gone. Carol Preston 2.0 was dead. Everything she’d ever valued had disappeared like water through her fingers. All that remained was the void.

_You didn’t let them destroy you._

But if this wasn’t the total destruction of self what else was it?

Her vodka was still beneath the seat. It would burn its way down her throat, make a false fire in her belly. The kitchen was fully stocked. She could raid the cupboards, consume until she was sick and the reality of it forced a reaction. She could research, bury her head in the mounds of useless paper until the real world melted away. She could sleep. Sleep and never wake up again. Instead, unable to summon up even a drop of energy, she lay in the never ending darkness, frozen in place, dry eyed and hollow, guarding the Lifeboat in case he chose to leave again, in case he tried to break the only bond that held her together, in case he decided dead was better, relieved when the claxon blared to say Rittenhouse had jumped.


	3. Dominoes

“Where are they?” Everyone was running. Computer keys clacked, milliseconds passed. “28th April, 1915. New York. Lucy?”

They swarmed around, checking connections, running algorithms, dragging out clothes. Lucy remained motionless, hearing only the noise.

“Lucy?” Flynn’s hand on her shoulder jolted her back, his face carefully blank.

“New York. April 28th, 1915.” She repeated automatically, trying to make the date stick.

Nothing sprang to mind. Her mother would have known without trying. Of course her mother should have been the one planning the mission so she would definitely have known the target. If she was alive. If Emma hadn’t shot her. 

“It’s a year into The Great War. Woodrow Wilson has kept America neutral and they won’t join for another two years. Europe is applying pressure for help to destroy the Kaiser’s forces. The Battle of Gallapoli just concluded in Anzac Cove. Jane Adams and the Woman’s Peace Party are arriving in The Hague. It’s about a week before German U-boats torpedo a convoy of ships in the Atlantic.” Everything clicked. “The RMS Lusitania sets sail May 1st from New York. 128 American’s die when it sinks and it becomes the first step towards America’s involvement in the war.”

“So they’re going to stop it sailing?” Rufus asked, not so sure that was a bad thing.

“Possibly. Or maybe there’s a passenger on board who they’ve decided should survive.” Anne Shymer? Alfred Scott Willerby? Lindon W. Bates? Big business and political leaders all.

“Or one who survived that they would rather have died. Have we got a manifest for the ship?” Flynn threw in, his accent sharpened, his mind working as fast as hers.

“But why the 28th? Three days seems a long time to hang around in the past.”

He looked at her, searching for something and apparently finding it. “Maybe there is more to it than that. The Rittenhouse we know is gone. This is all on Emma now.”

Denise entered with a clack of court shoes and an air of efficiency. “Whatever it is Rittenhouse already has a head start. You need to get moving.”

They hustled, Wyatt and Flynn heading for the weapons store, Rufus for the Lifeboat.

“No!” Jiya’s voice bounced off the walls, an octave higher than normal. “I’ll pilot.” 

***

_New York, 1915_

With the Lifeboat carefully hidden in a warehouse they made their way into the hive of activity that was the docks area.

Rufus checked over his shoulder again. “Soon as we’re home I’m making a key for her.”

“What, you’d feel better if you could hear a ‘beep beep’ when we leave it? You think anyone would even know what it was let alone know how to fly it?” Flynn shrugged, tugging at his sleeves, straightening the three piece suit he’d worn in 1919.

“Hey! I sweated blood to programme her. And if someone found a way inside or messes with anything we’re all deep fired and crispy on arrival.”

“You’re forgetting _this_ Lifeboat is a gift from the Future Team.”

Rufus stopped and raised an eyebrow, opening his mouth to retaliate, but was cut off when Wyatt shouldered passed the two men. “Can we get this show on the road already?” 

Rufus and Flynn shared a look. 

“Someone forgot to have his Cheerios.” The pilot quipped before speeding up to catch the form being sucked into the body of people ahead.

Flynn hung back until he found pace with Lucy, comfortable to walk in silence until she looked in his direction.

“It’s strange to think that in just four years all of this will have changed so much as to be unrecognisable.”

Her history professor mode automatically engaged. “The early twentieth century saw rapid change in all American cities. New York benefited from waves of immigrants bringing skills from Europe and causing an upsurge in new buildings.” As if to emphasis her point a good natured dispute began between two tradesmen they passed, a spattering of English interspersed with the Italian they spoke.

Being sure to keep his eyes on the increasing crowds as they made their way to the main area on the waterfront, Flynn surreptitiously checked on Lucy as he asked, “What do you suppose Grace Hummingford would say if she bumped into us now?”

Not knowing where he was going with this Lucy looked over at him, quickly looking back to the sights of yesteryear when their eyes tangled. “She’d probably make some pithy comment on what the distance between our shoulders meant about the greater state of our interpersonal relationship and then keep walking.” Which made her in turn wonder if she hadn’t somehow moved that bit too close to him? The need to keep checking he was real seemed to pull her into closer physical contact than she was comfortable with. 

Predictably, in trying to discreetly edge away she managed to catch her heel on the hem of her dress and almost gracelessly fall into the dirt street. 

Flynn’s arm shot out to catch her, manoeuvring her away from danger, moving her close enough that she could see the stubble beginning to form on his jaw.

To compensate for her clumsiness, for the way her eyes clung to the chiselled lines of his cheek, she added, “It would make for an interesting conversation in a couple of years’ time though.” A small, self-conscious smile managed to grace her lips.

“Thank you.”

He shifted, threaded her arm through his elbow, and began to walk again as she sought her place in the conversation.

“For coming after me.” He clarified as an old car tooted and rattled by them. He steered her into a nearby doorway as a second car closely followed the first. “I, er,” he rubbed the back of his neck, searching for the right words, “I can’t say that I wouldn’t make the same choice again, because we both know that occasionally I make … rash decisions.” His smile was self-depreciating. “But when I saw you there I realised I should have thought more about what I was doing. My intentions…”

“Lucy!” Wyatt’s voice carried across the street. “Are you ok?” He came closer, shooting an angry glance at this team mate. As she nodded he inserted himself between the pair and said, “Rufus is keeping an eye on a Saloon one block over. One of Emma’s goons just went inside.”

Whatever Flynn had been about to say disappeared, the moment gone.

***

The others left them to discuss who was taking the Lifeboat back. 

“Hey.” Rufus searched Jiya’s face, aware that something was wrong but unsure what. “Did you have another vision?”

Since their last discussion he thought he’d found a way to be at peace with Jiya’s new talent but the apprehension of what she might see wasn’t going away any time soon.

She crossed her arms over her chest, raised her chin in the defiant way that was so her and said, “I’m piloting.” Belligerence written in every line.

He knew there were things he didn’t know. Knew that in her timeline things had changed from after Hollywood and Heddy Lamar. They’d talked a little about the differences, about his death, but there was a whole load of something she wasn’t talking about. That scar on her shoulder. Those marks on her back. Chinatown.

“Jiya,” He swept back of lock of her hair. She closed her eyes but a tear escaped. “I don’t begin to understand what you’ve gone through, or what it feels like to think I was dead.”

“You were dead.”

“Yeah, ok. But I’m here now and that’s not going to change. If it was the other way round and you were,” he audibly swallowed, “well, and then I got you back I know that I’d have a hard time letting you go on a mission.” Her eyes opened, sheer misery written in their depths. “But that’s exactly why I need to be the one to go. To show you I’m coming back. If I don’t go then next time the fear will be worse and then worse again. Who knows? Maybe this time we’ll luck out and take Rittenhouse down once and for all.”

“I can’t lose you again.”

He kissed her gently, then not so gently. “You are braver than anyone I have ever met and I know it’s asking a lot, but we’re a team and we can do this.”

“Like Han and Leia?”

“Like Kirk and Spock.”

***

The Saloon was a bust.

“He must have gone straight out through the back.” Rufus shrugged, trying to look inconspicuous as more than one angry glance was cast in his direction. “Guys? Can we get out of here now?”

“It wouldn’t have happened if you two had just kept up.” Wyatt’s mood had not improved. “They know were here now. We’ll have to be twice as cautious.” 

They all knew they drill. Split up and look for a possible target.

Flynn hung back to make sure they all exited the saloon safely, looked up towards the darkening sky and said, “We may be here for some time. We need to secure lodgings.”

Rufus’ shoulders slumped. “Great. Now all we need is somewhere that’s willing to house two men, one woman and me.” No small feat considering the year.

Lucy’s sympathetic gaze landed on her friend. It was fairly miserable to be a woman in the past but it was nothing compared to Rufus’ troubles.

“There will be nowhere in the warehouse district. We might have more luck closer to the main hub. Many of the passengers who were boarding the trans-Atlantic vessels stayed overnight before they embarked. We should be able to come up with something.”

“Lucy will stay with me.” Wyatt positioned himself so that he stood closest to her. “She can be on the lookout for anyone who stands out as a potential target while I check out the ship.”

“Actually,” Lucy moved a step away, “at this time in the afternoon anyone who’s anyone has retired to their rooms before dinner.” She didn’t appreciate being spoken for. And she didn’t like the idea of Flynn being out her sight for too long either. _I can’t say I wouldn’t make the same decision again_ … No. He knew where the Lifeboat with its shiny new autopilot was. Under no circumstances was he going to be given the opportunity for another solo flight.

“So we’ll check into a hotel while Rufus and Flynn check the docks.” Wyatt made to take her arm.

“Uh uh.” Rufus called a halt this time. “We’ll stand out like a sore thumb. Not to mention leaving me with Captain Crazy! Nope, not happening.”

Flynn rolled his eyes dramatically, devilment lighting his face. “I am flattered by your faith in my abilities.”

Two hands in the air Rufus shook his head. “Look man, no offense, ‘cause obviously you don’t want me dead anymore, but between my being black and your accent they’ll either press gang us or shoot us. Plus Rittenhouse will spot you a mile off. We won’t last an hour.”

“I could stoop?” Flynn exaggerated hunching his shoulders and walking, bent kneed. “If Wyatt’s height is the deciding factor?”

Rufus remained conspicuously quiet.

Outvoted three to one Wyatt chose to grab Flynn’s forearm instead. “If anything happens to her…”

Flynn looked at the fingers wrinkling his suit jacket, unimpressed. 

Wyatt didn’t take the hint. “I know what you are.”

“Everyone knows what I am. The real question is, do you know what you are?”

“Don’t try the psycho-babble on me. Once a terrorist, always a terrorist.”

“Wyatt!”

“The only reason he didn’t kill us all before was because he didn’t have the time.” Wyatt turned towards Lucy, imploring. “He kidnapped you, offered you up to H. H. Holmes…”

“The hell I did.” Flynn’s growled. He shoved the younger man off him and dusted down his suit as though it was contaminated. “The plan was to have you and Rufus occupied at the World’s Fair Hotel for a short while. I hadn’t counted on Lucy being quite so industrious and if I hadn’t had to deal with Houdini…”

_A cramped, dark coffin with no air and a madman._

  
“Enough!” Lucy’s voice cut through them both, her hands on their respective chests. “We’re supposed to be on the same side, remember? If we keep going like this we won’t need to let Emma get us or succeed in changing history. We’ll screw it up all on our own.” Then she took Flynn’s elbow and pulled him away. “We’ll meet up in two hours.”

Wyatt watched them leave with a tick in his jaw. When they were out of sight he stalked towards the waterfront. 

“Wyatt, hey wait up!” Rufus called, really having to hustle to keep time. “Look, I know that the Jessica thing is throwing you…”

Jerking to a halt, Wyatt opened his mouth to snarl then stopped, remorse making him look older than his years. “I know I’m being an asshole.” He hung his head, heaved in a breath. “I just, I mean… you’ve seen the way he looks at her, right?” Rufus nodded, closed lipped. “He’s always right there.”

“Don’t sweat it.” Trying for a friendly clap on the back Rufus was afraid he might have made the gesture more of a petting for a cornered dog. “You and Lucy, you’re tight.”

Wyatt sighed. “Maybe in your timeline. In ours I really screwed the pooch.” He looked around him and chose a direction almost randomly. “Jess was alive and living in the bunker with us.” 

“Ok.” Rufus said slowly. “So you tried again with your wife. It didn’t work out. Lucy understands how much Jessica’s death ate at you. I’m sure she understands that you had to give the marriage another shot when Jessica was, what – resurrected? You work through it. It’s what relationships are about.”

Wyatt gave a baleful glance. “We’re not all like you and Jiya. And I made mistakes. Big ones.”

“Say you’re sorry. Buy flowers.” 

“I ran off to find Jessica straight after Hollywood,” at Rufus ‘so?’ look Wyatt continued, “without telling anyone what I was doing. I brought her to the bunker without clearance. And I did want to make it work, really, I mean, man, it’s Jess. She’s my childhood sweetheart, my first love. We’ve been together forever.” He looked left and right without seeing anything. “Then she died – she died! – and I was finally starting to move on.” He turned and stopped Rufus with a hand. “You know I love Lucy. But Jess was alive and there again and I love her, but I love Lucy too.”

“You chose your wife.” Rufus reverted to reassuring if awkward patting. “I’m sure Lucy understood.”

“Yeah. She was great. Only, I didn’t want her to be great about it. I wanted things to stay the same between us.”

“ _You wanted Lucy to have an affair with you?_ ” Telling him George Lucas auditioned for the role of Dr McCoy could not have scandalised Rufus more.

Shaking his head Wyatt denied it. “Not an affair, just, I wanted her to look at me the way she always did. I wanted our friendship to be unchanged, that togetherness, you know? But she was going on missions with Flynn and people kept calling her his wife. They were laughing about personal jokes and I, well I saw red. I made everything really difficult for her. Rubbed her nose in me and Jess being together again. And I wasn’t straight with her. I,” He looked sideways, ashamed, “I hid things that I should have told people and then Chinatown blew up and the Futures showed up, just her and me and I thought… They gave _me_ the journal and it said things about Lucy and Flynn and I wanted to throw up. I acted like a child. _I_ made the decision Jessica had to die so that you could be alive again. Then Flynn and Lucy come back and tell us that Jessica is alive but didn’t tell me and it’s all ok even though she’s alive and I, I said she had to die.” He hung his head. “I was going to do it myself, but then Flynn, fucking Flynn did it, but didn’t really do it, and I was so angry. With Flynn. With Jess. With myself.”

Rufus said nothing as they resumed their course.

“I spoke to Lucy last night but half the time I wasn’t even thinking of her. I was thinking of Jess and wondering where she is and what she’s doing.”

_Meanwhile…_

  
“Von Dietrichstein!” A heavy set man with enough facial hair to hide all but his eyes barrelled up to them outside the columned door way to a hotel they had just discounted as an option. “Good Gad man!” He clapped Flynn on the back. “Thought we’d seen the last of you in Lemberg.” He guffawed in a manner Lucy had believed only possible in fictional characters.

“Mr…” Flynn tried, clearly at a loss.

“Fitzgerald man! Did those Turks really bash your head that hard or was it the wine and the …” He seemed to become aware of Lucy’s presence all at once, “Yes, well. Madam.” He performed a stiff little bow. “This must be your delightful wife.”

Lucy and Flynn exchanged a glance, both confused, both unsure whether they should agree with their new associate or set him straight. They reached a decision without exchanging a word. 

“Mr Fitzgerald, allow me to introduce Lucy.” Flynn’s hand rested lightly on her back, his head bowed towards her. 

Something tight unwound, just a little, inside of her.

“Charmed.” Fitzgerald’s moustache tickled her hand. “Are you heading out or coming in?”

“We’re due to board the RMS Lusitania in a couple of days. One of our acquaintances was unfortunately called away so we have made better time arriving than we thought.” Lucy offered, trying to look downcast. “Unfortunately our rooms are not available for another day.”

“Damned unpredictable times.” Fitzgerald tutted. “I arrived not three hours ago. Should be grateful to make it in one piece I suppose. Is your man with you?” He asked and without waiting for a reply signalled to a person somewhere behind him. “No matter. Collins will sort things.”

“That’s very kind of you. However we are travelling with two others.”

Fitzgerald spoke briefly with a thin man in his late fifties before assuring them their rooms would be sorted and leading them inside, towards a seating area.

“The Lusitania, hmm.” Fitzgerald sipped from a glass. “Heading to Old Blighty?”

“My wife has distant cousins in Buckinghamshire.”

“Indeed.” The man downed his first drink and signalled for a second. “I’m in from London myself. Whitehall is sending anyone with contacts out to try to drum up support for this damned war.” He coughed, the very tip of his nose reddening.

“And naturally they asked you.” Smiling, Flynn sipped at a drink, silently encouraging the conversation.

“Couldn’t do much else. Half of them don’t speak the lingo.” Fitzgerald drank only marginally slower the second time. “Did you see the papers this morning? German Embassy placing advertisements – _adverts_! – telling people not to travel on British ships, declaring all British waters to be war zones. And sending out those U-boats! Damned unsportsmanlike if you ask me.”

He hailed the waiter for yet another drink.

Lucy leaned closer to her ‘husband’ and whispered, “How many of those do you think he’s had?”

“Enough to confuse me with an Austrian Count seemingly.” Lucy narrowed her eyes. “However many, it’s done us the favour of getting us into somewhere we might find a lead. Whatever Emma’s up to she won’t be slumming it.”

Something seemed to occur to Fitzgerald. “Last time we spoke you were on the outs with the Kaiser and his cronies. That still the case?”

Flynn answered as vaguely as he could. “My dispute still stands.”

“Thought as much. A gentleman does not get over such an insult to himself or his family name. Heard they are on about getting rid of the peerage out there altogether?”

“I expect the declaration by the end of the year.”

Of course Flynn knew about the removal of nobility from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lucy shouldn’t have been surprised, nor quite as impressed as she was.

“Inciting chaos if you ask me.”

A man in formal attire approached with a silver plate holding a single envelope. 

“If you’d excuse me.” Fitzgerald turned away to deal with the correspondence.

Flynn and Lucy used the time to scan the room. The early evening crowd were beginning to arrive but no one stood out. “They could be after anyone.”

“Or anything.”

“So how do we narrow the options?”

“Maybe Rufus and Wyatt are having more luck?”

“Damn and blast!” Fitzgerald thundered, dragging their eyes back to him. “My apologies my dear. Some inopportune news. Dietrichstien, have you come across a man by the name of Callaghan on your travels of late?”

Flynn indicated a negative response.

“Seems to have come out of nowhere. And snagged himself a meeting with the American Admiralty tomorrow.”

Lucy’s ears pricked up. “Isn’t that unusual, sir? I thought there needed to be formal introductions of all manners before such a meeting could occur.”

“Too true, madam, too true. This fellow has no sense of decorum. According to my sources he’s parading a woman around town and talking his way into social situations above their station. New money.” He actually tutted.

“Very vulgar.” Flynn agreed, confirming silently with Lucy that they may have a lead after all.

***

The clatter of horses hooves no longer woke Jiya. The sound of broken glass no longer made her startle. The calm had been hard won, but then three years was a long time in which to learn.

The images of Rufus were fuzzier now, softened by time and distance. The pain of her choice was consistent. She longed for his arms, for his murmurs as she sobbed out the pain, as she cried for the death her visions had shown her on repeat, for the life she used to live, for all the things that had happened to her to bring her to the here and now, a twenty first century woman in a nineteenth century life.

Currently the thing she most missed was a fridge, or more specifically the small freezer section of the fridge in her apartment where there was a ready supply of ice. Raw meat was no substitute for ice on a black eye.

“You planning on working or getting thrown back out on the street?” Ever pleasant, her latest boss’ sympathy knew no bounds.

At least old age was highly unlikely.

***

Much to Wyatt’s disgust he was the one to go out and locate Callaghan. If she was honest Lucy was relieved he was gone. Listening to another round of how awful Flynn was wasn’t high on her list of priorities.

She and Flynn had resolved sleeping arrangements easily – “I’ll take the chair” – and while Rufus’ space wasn’t exactly deluxe they’d all slept in far worse places.

Dinner with Fitzgerald was quicker than anticipated too. By the time the ‘Von Dietrichstien’s’ joined him he was inebriated enough for the fumes to carry across the table. He left for his rooms before dessert.

Waiting for day break was harder. Dawn crept ever closer but sleep refused to come. She tried not to let the ghosts in, not to feel the absence of what should have, could have, would have been. Perhaps it didn’t help that she had one ear constantly open, alert to any movement from the chair that might indicate his intent to leave. Perhaps it was the knowledge that even as she lay awake so did he, listening to her breaths in the dark as she listened to his, a silent sentinel. As the first light crept in she looked over, caught the glint of his half closed eyes, ever watchful. He didn’t ask and she didn’t say. It seemed safer that way.

If she’d had a choice she would have wished for modern makeup to hide the smudges beneath her eyes but she made do with what she had. No-one commented so she just had to assume she’d done a decent job, even though the mirror told a different tale.

“Callaghan is making lots of noise.” Wyatt offered. “Plenty of people wanted to talk about him splashing the cash. And the woman he was with? A red head with a sharp tongue.”

“Emma?”

“That’s my guess. Question is, what’s she up to?”

They stood just inside an alleyway, looking over at where Callaghan had spent the night. The morning city bustled with noise but the in lofty heights of the particular hotel they observed very little was happening.

“If she’s talking to the Admiralty it’s got to be war related. They’re hoping to get us to enter early?” Rufus bounced on the balls of his feet, part nerves, part desire for this to be over so they could go home.

Lucy considered it. “If they did they would have to use different suppliers from those they use in our timeline. The two years after the sinking of the Lusitania were used to build up the American war effort and gather support from the people. Most are currently opposed to getting involved in the European war.”

“Emma’s got a Rittenhouse supplier lined up to boost their war chest?”

“Seems likely.” Wyatt looked around the corner again, willing his target to emerge, bitten by the same desire for this to be done already.

“You are probably right…” Lucy shook her head. It just didn’t seem right.

Flynn spoke up for the first time. “It’s too easy.” 

Before, it had alarmed her how he could all but read her mind. Now a hot bolt of something a lot like anger shot through her. _Because if they were so in sync then there was no way he would have been as stupid as to think exchanging his life_ … “Yes. It’s Emma. She nothing if not devious and convoluted. Openly walking about town with her sleeper agent? That’s more sledgehammer than subtle blade.”

“I’d have to agree. I was expecting an agent on the ship who caused an engine issue to delay the voyage while her other men assassinated the ship’s captain or something.”

_Apparently we’ll make quite the team._

“That does sound more in keeping with her machinations.”

“So if we’re thinking this is too obvious…”

“Not that it won’t work and doesn’t have to be dealt with.”

“We still need to look for other ways she could influence events in her favour.”

When Flynn was the enemy, when he was ripping through history, when he was intent on burning everything to the ground there was a part of her that had hated him. It was nothing compared to the white hot ball of anger that lodged in her chest now. _We finish each other’s sentences. We think the same way. We don’t even have to speak and he still left me that stupid … fucking … letter._

She managed a nod.

“If it were you, Lucy, how would you do it?” Because he asked her opinion. Because he valued her responses. Because they were equals. 

_A STUPID … FUCKING … LETTER._

  
“I’d get America to enter the war earlier.”

“Are you sure? The Lucy Preston I know is usually more people orientated.” 

_He knew her. The real her. Not the good girl who bit her tongue but the real Lucy. The Lucy she dreamt of being, without her mother’s voice in her head. He’d seen her at her very worst and he’d held her, hadn’t run away. He’d sat in silence with her when she needed not to be alone. He’d understood parts of her she had never allowed into the light. Then he’d left her without a word._

“You’re right. My mother would change the start of the war date for the money. I’d be more tempted to stop Mary Ryerson boarding. Her husband founded the Canadian Red Cross and her death had a profound impact. Or maybe Albert Hopkins? Save him, save his steam boat company and then you have a wealthy ally for life.”

“So we look at both angels.”

“All three. There is still the possibility Rittenhouse plans to sabotage the ship.”

***

Click clack went the knitting needles one day.

Click clack went the knitting needles.

Click clack went the knitting needles one day.

And the knitting needles went clack.

But we know knitting goes …

“Does that not drive you insane?” Jiya jumped up, a tightly wound bundle of fury. “Clack clack clack clack clack.”

She stormed the seven steps to the console and back again. No movement. The Mothership was still in 1915.

“Jiya?” Denise held the needles and wool in place, careful not to move.

She was crawling out of her skin. Where were they? What were they doing? Where was Rufus? Was he ok? 

_Two bits for the hour, little darlin’._

The present and the past seemed to run in parallel. Rufus or Jiya? Jiya or Rufus. Squelch went the knife. Bang went the gun.

Jiya collapsed as her eyes rolled back into her head.

***

Rufus took out the man on the ship quite by accident. Feeling more comfortable in the darker spaces, given the early twentieth century take on skin colour, he’d slipped into the bowels of the ship, swung open a door and thwacked a man across the head. As he’d rushed to apologise the man’s mouth had fallen open to reveal perfectly straight, white teeth. One hundred percent not authentic 1910’s America. The sleek modern firearm confirmed the opinion.

Wyatt cornered Callaghan before his meeting. He feigned the drunk and knocked into the reedy looking fellow, sloshing a drink over the pristine suit he wore. He’d never have been able to get away with it if Emma was present but apparently she felt her work was done with this lackey. As Callaghan blustered indignation Wyatt jabbed a barrel under his ribs and ‘escorted’ him to a more private location. After a short tussle Mr Callaghan was no longer an issue.

It was Lucy and Flynn who drew a blank. They checked everyone they could think of that might make a difference if their fates were amended but Emma was nowhere to be seen.

“Are we over thinking this?” Flynn had to look of a man who’d spent too long coming up empty.

“Your dress is real pretty, miss.” A little voice spoke from somewhere close to the floor where a precocious blonde with ringlets was fingering the material of Lucy’s ‘borrowed’ garment.

“Miss Millicent!” A young woman hurried to the child, looking stricken at the slightly darkened patch on Lucy’s dress where the child had touched.

“Look Annie. It’s like the dress in Mama’s book from Paris. Are you from France?” Guileless blue eyes blinked up at Lucy.

Lucy smiled reassuringly at the governess before addressing the child. “Unfortunately not, Miss Millicent, although I’m told it is very lovely there.”

“My Papa is going to take me when I’m older.” The child confidently explained. “He says all the ladies wear the latest fashions and all the men speak of very important things.”

Flynn lips twitched beside her. “Your father sound like a very knowledgeable man.”

“Are you a Papa too?” The girl asked, artlessly bringing pain to the tall man towering over her. 

He met Lucy’s eyes for a second, full of everything he’d lost. “No.” His voice was gruff. Lucy couldn’t have stooped her hand reaching out to him if she had wanted to.

The little girl was apparently done with the conversation and skipped away.

“I’m so sorry, Sir, Madam.” Annie stammered. “I’m new you see and she’s a bit of a handful. Nothing like her siblings. I’ve got to catch her up or Mrs Fenwick will have me out on my ear. Sorry again.” The young woman bolted with a bobbed curtsey.

“Fenwick? As in House Representative Millicent Fenwick?”

“Lucy.” Flynn directed her gaze towards the door Annie and the child had just exited through. The flash of red hair was following them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had the 'Hmm hmm went the little green frog one day' song stuck in my head all week. Jiya apparently has too.
> 
> Also, while Jiya and Rufus are proving a challenge to write, I really think there should have been more time dedicated to what had happened to her and how that changed things/how they worked through it.


	4. Of Journals

“I don’t care about the pilot first rule. I’m taking the shower.” Flynn slammed out of the room, every step a dripping wet, slimy squelch.

Denise watched him go with eyebrows raised. “Should I ask?”

“It wasn’t me.” Wyatt offered and at the pointed looks added, “The first time.”

***

Emma was elusive. The quick flash of red hair here, a dash of olive skirts there. They never seemed able to catch up with her.

The Fenwick’s were, for now, ensconced in their rooms but with Emma at large and up to heaven only knew what Lucy felt uneasy.

“You stay with the family, I’ll follow Emma.”

Steady but firm, Flynn stared her down. “No.”

“We don’t have time for this Flynn!” The need to move, to catch, to end this, agitated her words, kept her body in motion.

His look held her, refusing to let go, his voice gravelled but soft. “I am the one who’s going after Emma.” He didn’t have to remind her what had happened last time.

“And if she doubles back?”

“You’ll be waiting for her.”

Logically Lucy knew he was right, knew he was a better shot, better fighter, better soldier. Knew that only she could talk her way into the rooms across the hall, start coffee and conversation with the soon to be deceased Mrs Fenwick. It didn’t stop the tightness in her chest, the shortening of her breath, the way her pulse sped up. It couldn’t prevent the sound of the shot and her mother’s body on the floor before her.

_It still belongs to you. All you have to do is take it. It’s my last wish for you._

She tried to hold it all in, tried not to let the blood-surging dizziness distract her, tried not to feel the bone deep fear. The words fell out of her mouth anyway. “You are coming back?”

He stood very still, mouth slightly ajar as though whatever thought he had been about to voice had frozen inside it. Only his eyes moved. They burned with searing green intensity, telling her something if only she was able, or willing, to understand it.

“You have my word.”

The world restarted as he moved, his strides covering distance as though it was nothing.

“Flynn…”

He glanced back over his shoulder, darkly determined, unflinchingly focused and she felt it again; that pull, that tie, that thing that bound them, stretched taunt but there. Even when he turned the corner she caught herself staring at the last spot he’d been, holding her breath, wrapping her arms around her body, trying to hold herself together - physically at least. Remembering how he thought he was ‘expendable’. Understanding finally, that of them out of them all, he was the one she couldn’t survive without.

***

“You pushed him off the docks?” Even Connor seemed outraged.

“It wasn’t a push, exactly.”

Rufus, arm wrapped around Jiya’s waist, tried to defend. “It was more of a gentle nudge.”

“And Emma did it first.”

“Honestly!” Denise deposited hot drinks on the coffee table, tutting in that way all teenagers dread, managing to make Wyatt hang his head. “Other than our resident loose cannon taking a swim in the bay there were no other hiccups?”

“No ma’am.”

“Lucy? Have you checked the database?”

Did they talk about her like this behind her back? “Everything looks normal.”

“And Emma?”

***

_Hello Princess._

Every footstep that passed the door made Lucy tense. Every clatter of the elevator made her miss words of the conversation.

“So as you can see, nearest Lille was the obvious choice.”

For??? Oh yes. “Absolutely. Being so close to the Belgium boarder though? Aren’t you worried you are going to be too close to the battlefields?” Knowing that this particular venture was not in the future for the pretty young woman before her.

“My dear Mrs Von Dietrichstien, how can we of the Red Cross be expected to aid those most in need if we hide ourselves away in the safety of the cities? The latest reports say poisoned gas has been used on those poor men. The death toll is staggering.” And due to get much worse.

Where was Flynn?

“I have heard that travel across the Atlantic has become quite dangerous. Are you not concerned?”

Mary Fenwick sipped delicately from her cup, a picture of self-composure. “I have faith that the Good Lord has a plan for us all. My husband, family and myself will find safe passage if that is His will.”

“You’re taking your children?”

“Given the nature of our journey that was not our original plan, but our nanny recently left us and my husband and I thought it better if the new nanny accompany us.”

Millicent Fenwick had not set foot on the RMS Lusitania which could only mean…

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Did your previous nanny give notice?”

“Not one jot. Just up and left not two days ago. I have to say, it was quite unlike her but we received a letter to say she had found herself a beau, a soldier, and was travelling to marry him. Highly inconvenient, of course, but these things do happen. Mr Fenwick is refusing to give her a reference.”

“How unfortunate.” There had to be a way to convince Mary that the children should not travel, maybe even that she should keep her feet on the shore.

A knock sounded on the outer door. Male voices rumbled for a moment before Mr Ogden Fenwick entered, followed by a total unruffled Flynn.

“Mr Von Dietrichstien I presume.”

Flynn executed a formal bow. “Madam. I received a note to say I might find my wife here, which I do.”

Mary bustled about, ringing for more refreshments, while Lucy questioned Flynn with a look. He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.

***

Wyatt sprawled across the floor watching reruns of the Super Bowl, his back to the sofa that Lucy sat crunched up on staring blankly forward. Connor stirred a dubious smelling pot not far away in the kitchen area while Denise began packing up her papers for the day. Flynn hadn’t returned after his shower.

Rufus stood awestruck, examining the upgraded Lifeboat while Jiya checked the computer diagnostic programme she’d been running.

“Future Lucy and Future Wyatt really showed up in this thing?”

“Like I could have built it in the thirty six hour window you were gone?” Jiya bit her lip, adjusted a line of data and tried again, distracted.

Lovingly moving his hands across the newly battle-scarred surface of his baby Rufus couldn’t help but ask, “What were they like?”

“Hmm?” If she could just get the last variable right then Jiya knew she could get the radius for detection of the Mothership down, maybe by up to fifteen percent.

“The Future’s. What were they like?”

“She had shorter hair, he had a beard. They looked like Apocalypse Now wrapped in Tomb Raider coating. I just need to finish this one little …”

“And they said they couldn’t stop Rittenhouse without me.” Rufus couldn’t help but preen. It was totally justifiable.

“Yup. Future Lucy gave Wyatt the journal and said we had to figure it out together. Then they hopped in our Lifeboat and were gone.”

“Did you read it?”

“What?”

“Lucy’s journal?”

“No. Why would I?”

“They said we needed to work it out together.”

“I think they meant Lucy and Wyatt.”

“But why not give the journal back to Flynn?”

“He’s got it memorised?”

“But he said Lucy went back to 2014 and gave him the journal.”

“Yeah, well this time Lucy gave the journal to Wyatt.”

Rufus looked over to the living area, inspired to help his friends see the light. “What do think Lucy? It’s got to be significant, right? Only Future You and Future Wyatt showing up and giving your journal to Wyatt?”

Something snapped inside of Lucy. A light switch finally clicking back on after a power-cut. Absolute conviction rolled across her, burning everything in its path. “That journal is a total crock.”

***

“Emma’s killing kids now?”

“Apparently she really doesn’t like this one.”

“Millicent Fenwick grows up to be an editor of Vogue magazine, a Congresswoman and a Civil Rights advocate in a party that does not support the movement. Emma doesn’t get to kill her, or anyone else. Not if I have anything to do with it.” The teacher in her wanted history preserved. The person she was understood, all too well these days, that history was not a series of facts and statistics, of dominoes all lining up for the everything to fall into place. No, history was the people who lived it, who survived or died based solely on how the coin fell.

“Flynn?” He looked up from his seat, waiting, “Von Dietrichstien needs to meet with Fitzgerald again. In the lobby. Where everyone can see.”

“And Emma?”

“She won’t pass up a golden opportunity to strike.”

Getting the Fenwick’s to the lobby was relatively easy. Being glad to bump into them worked well too. The hard part was persuading two like-minded humanitarians not to offer aid as soon as they wanted.

“Your concerns are touching, Madam, but our plans are fixed. We depart on the 1st.”

“Mr Fenwick, Mary,” Lucy appealed, praying her words would be enough. “My husband is meeting with Mr Fitzgerald as we speak.” She indicated the two men who were talking with their heads close together. Fitzgerald was casting eyes about as though the Kaiser himself was watching from the foyer. Heaven knew what Flynn as telling him. Hopefully to watch out for a red headed hellion. “He is a representative of the British government and, I believe, could be persuaded to find new sources of revenue to help support your organisations work. However, when he asked to speak to my husband not two hours ago, he informed us that he had intelligence that the convoy we were to travel to England in was being targeted for attack by a German fleet of U-boats.”

“Madam, please calm yourself. The Germans and the Americans are in a non-aggression accord. All neutrality must be maintained. Targeting American ships would be in direct violation of this accord.”

“Mr Fitzgerald has been reliably informed that the Germans believe this convoy will be carrying military aid to Britain.” Which was true but wouldn’t be revealed until the mid-1980s.

“I do not believe…”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe, sir. What matters is what the captains of those U-boats believe. The Lusitania is part of this convoy. Are you ready to risk the lives of yourself and your family on the hope that the Atlantic is big enough for them to miss us all?”

The husband and wife shared a look. “The young men involved in the fighting do not have time for us to waste hiding here. We need…”

“You need to be alive in order to help them. And you need finances to provide that help. Please, listen to this intelligence and, if you were to find a later vessel to travel on you would have time to meet with Mr Fitzgerald himself.”

***

Everyone stopped and stared.

“Lucy?”

She uncoiled, feeling life in her limbs for the first time since she’d sat on the Lifeboat steps listening to them raise that mockery of a toast. “It’s propaganda and garbage. Burn it and do us all a favour.”

Wyatt levered himself up, confused and not in small part shocked by her tone. “How can you say that?”

Her blood fizzed. “What? You’ve read it. Does it list our missions in order? Does it talk about Rittenhouse as a man? Does it mention anything about Rufus? Jessica? Chinatown?”

About the mother she’d lost? Or the way not one of them had even asked if she was ok? Did it say anything about Wyatt dropping her like a hot stone then crawling back expecting her to be sat there just waiting for him to notice her again?

“Lucy, be reasonable. There’s no way we’d have agreed to let you put those things in there. The possible ramifications on the timeline would be catastrophic.” Connor could not have picked a worse time to offer an opinion.

She pinned him with her eyes, willing the heat behind them to leap forth and burn. “You’d have let me???” Her inside voice quickly deserted her. “I’m sorry, when did _my_ journal become a collaboration?”

The bunker dad’s eyes grew round and he backed up a step, realising his mistake. “Ok.” He tried to pacify, holding his hands palms up. “It is your journal.” A nod of agreement from around the room. “That’s why those things aren’t in there.” A forced smile. “It’s more a personal recount.”

She wasn’t having any of this ‘let’s all be calm’ nonsense. “Jessica kidnapping Jiya wasn’t personal? Rufus dying?” She spun of Wyatt, “It wasn’t personal that the night after we slept together your wife miraculously rose from the grave?” She spat the words at him, all the anger and hurt she’d bottled up surging within her.

“That’s not ... I never meant…”

“You wouldn’t know what you meant if it leapt up and bit you on the ass.” She was shouting it but she couldn’t seem to, didn’t want to, stop.

“Lucy!” Denise tried the mom voice.

“What? You go home to your wife and family every night. You’re not stuck here in melodrama hell.”

“You need to calm down.” Spoken in a voice that would normally have quelled her. Right that moment she was too far gone to heed it.

“I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”

“You’re overwrought and …”

“If you even think of saying hysterical I swear I will throw something.”

Jiya stepped forward, tried, “Lucy take a breath.”

“Like you have since you came back?” Lucy dared her to say she was wrong, breathing heavily, shaking as everything inside her broke free from the ice that had been binding it.

“That’s not …”

“What?” Her voice broke, her throat aching from force she used. “Fair? You lived three years in the 1880’s and you’re not talking about it. You want to say I’m bottling things up? Take a look in the mirror.”

“Lucy…”

“No. It’s time for some basic honesty around here. We’re all self-serving hypocrites.” She knew the tears had started but she just didn’t care.

“I think it would be better…” Mason approached her from the side, one arm out as though approaching a wounded animal.

“You built a time machine to prove that you could, taking money from people you knew weren’t on the level. You let them threaten Rufus’ family and even when we went into hiding you were prepared to risk all of us for your own sake.” Connor blanched.

“And you.” Lucy whirled. “You act like a mother hen but where are you when you’re really needed? You’re not risking your life in past. You have safeguards in place in case anything happens to _your_ memory, to _your_ family. But when I asked to save Amy you didn’t want to hear it. There is always another reason she can’t be saved.”

Wyatt tried to reach out for her as she gulped down a breath. “Don’t you dare!” She tore herself away, bodily throwing herself as far from him as the room allowed. “You’re hit and run till the end and the only thing that truly matters to you is how _you_ feel. You lied and you acted like you had the moral high ground. And what, two hours after you chased her and abandoned your mission directive again you’re creeping up to say you love me? Do you honestly have the balls to stand there and tell me you didn’t beg Jessica to stay with you?”

She couldn’t have done more damage with a gun. “She said she was pregnant.”

“Well yippee!” She was panting now, burning hot, internally combusting. “That makes everything just fine then. Tell you what. Why not go and deliver her baby? After all, standing holding a new born wipes away all manner of sins, right?”

The tightness in her chest heralded the panic attack she knew was in full swing but she couldn’t find a way to stop. The words were like poison that had to be lanced from her body.

Jiya took a cautious step towards her. Rufus moved from the other side. Denise edged forwards as did Connor. All intent on stopping her somehow, unaware that stopping was no longer an option.

“And you, all of you. So fricking sanctimonious. Flynn’s made breakfast, we’ll eat it but we won’t bother to talk to him. Flynn took a bullet for the team, maybe next time Rittenhouse will aim better. Flynn can’t have a weapon but save us Flynn!”

“You’re right.” Rufus made what he hoped were calming noises. “We’ve been a little slow to adjust to the new team dynamics…”

“You left him in 1934. You wouldn’t have gone back for him if you didn’t have to return JFK!”

“He left us in 1754.”

The team glared at Wyatt and he shut up.

“You’re right. We can do better.” Rufus shifted a fraction closer.

“No. You can’t. Because at heart you’re all hoping he takes then next punch, the next blade, the next bullet and you can be rid of the reminder that every time you called him a terrorist we were the ones working for the wrong side.”

“That’s not…”

“You left him to die!!!” The words were torn from her, dragged out over the broken glass in her throat, in her soul.

“Luce, we went back to 1934.”

“In San Diego!”

The room fell silent.

“You really think he took the Lifeboat back to deal with Jessica, conveniently sent it back to us so we could escape 1848 and sat waiting for me to collect him in 2012? He sent it back with every expectation of dying. Because he knew we wouldn’t go back for him.”

His voice rumbled from the corridor, “That was my decision, Lucy.”

And finally she turned on him, as tears streamed down her face, as her heart broke and the world disappeared. “You _chose_ to go.” She screamed it at him, all the anger and the pain, the damage, the doubt and the misery. “You _chose_ my future for me. YOU CHOSE TO _LEAVE_ ME.”

He moved faster than any of them. One minute he was stood at the entrance to the room, then next he was in front of her as her fists lashed out at him, as her nails raked at his chest, as she howled and cried and sobbed.

He let her strike him, wrapping first one arm then the other around her as her blows weakened. He enfolded her in his body, taking her anger and her pain and making it his own, locking them together away from everything and everyone. As time passed he lowered them to the floor, braced her weight on his knees as he rocked her, held on until the violence left and nothing remained but the sorrow, all the while murmuring a language she didn’t understand into her hair.

Had there been anyone left in the room they might have been surprised to see tears falling from the eyes of Garcia Flynn, the man they called a heartless terrorist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to @princessamerigocreations for reading this through and checking I had not lost the plot! 
> 
> Quick note on Millicent Fenwick and her family. Her parents are actually the Hammond's but I couldn't work out a way in my head to get Lucy to jump from a five year old girl named Hammond to the woman that child would become so I used a little creative licence and gave the family her married name.


	5. Interludes

Morning light was filtering into the room when Lucy finally opened her eyes. For the first time since she’d arrived in the pre-historic bunker she felt warm. A quick peek showed she was covered by a thick layer of blankets, cossetted like a child. She didn’t remember leaving the common area but logic suggested Flynn had carried her, brought her to his quiet sanctuary and given up his bed. Again.

She rolled carefully onto her side, unsure of the physically damage she might have done in the midst of the storm. Any other damage would have to wait. She could only handle one problem at a time.

Across from the bed Flynn’s chin touched his chest in sleep, his body doubled over in the rooms’ only available seating. She had only a moment to feel guilty for making such a large man take up such an uncomfortable position before his eyes slitted open, alerted by some small noise she’d made.

“You need to stop sleeping in chairs.”

He gave a sleepy, sardonic smile, stretching to put his muscles back into place. “The bed was occupied.” His voice was roughened, more growl than man, his hair sticking up at odd angles.

Lucy managed a small smile of her own, gingerly sitting up. It felt like she’d run a marathon. Maybe two.

“How long was I out?”

“A while.” Time wasn’t particularly relevant underground.

When he stood the room shrank to about half its size and yet he moved with an ease Lucy envied. His clothes were rumpled, he had stubble on his usually shaven face, his feet were bare and for the first time she saw the man he must once have been, a man he seemed to be slowly turning into again. Not an enemy or an ally, but someone’s friend, something more. 

“Have people always called you Flynn?” She wasn’t sure where the question came from but now that she’d asked it she found herself curious about the answer.

His head tipped slightly, thinking, remembering. “It’s an army thing.”

“You’ve always called me Lucy.”

That little lip quirk he had, the flash of his tongue as he wetted his lip. “I’m sure I’ve called you Dr Preston once or twice.”

He wandered over to the filing cabinet he used to store his clothes, retrieved new ones for the day alongside a towel. “Are you ok if I…” He nodded towards the door, towards the showers.

There was a clench in her chest that suggested she wasn’t but she nodded anyway. Better to have a couple of minutes to herself so that she could work out which way was up.

“May I call you Garcia?” She found herself asking as he pulled opened the door.

She thought from the way he became very still, the way the lines of his back locked, that she’d crossed a line and willed the words back into her mouth. But he released a breath and without looking at her said, “I’d like that,” before leaving quietly.

***

_A short while later._

  
“Hey.” The footsteps hesitated before entering the kitchen space, stepping carefully as though the floor might be mined.

Flynn nodded, checking the filter before putting the coffee pot on, keeping his eyes on his task.

“I, um, how’s Lucy?”

“Better.”

Rufus scratched at the back of his neck, opened his mouth. Closed it again. He walked towards the table then changed his mind at the last minute, ending up at the counter a few feet from the Croatian. “She er, well, she made a couple of valid points.”

Turning his head, Flynn raised his eyebrows in a way only he could, conveying without words that he was mildly amused, mildly annoyed and possibly about to leave the room or do violence so the other man had better get this over and done with.

“We haven’t exactly been the most welcoming.”

If anything Flynn looked surprised. “Rufus, I had you shot. I wasn’t expecting a parade.”

Grimacing and shuddering Rufus agreed. “I know, and it sucked, believe me, but you also stopped a bunch of Puritans from hanging me, so there’s that.”

Flynn’s head dipped in acknowledgement. 

The hum of the generator and the hiss of the coffee were the only sounds until, “The things I did – before - are unforgivable.” He paused then added, “And it has been brought to my attention that sometimes I can be a little abrasive.”

“I don’t know where to start with that. Sometimes or a little?”

Smirking as he stirred milk into one of the cups Flynn continued, “However it has been – nice? – not to be in the fight against Rittenhouse on my own.”

Rufus mulled this over, replaying the highs and lows of their interactions to date. “I guess I wanted to say, all things considered - and you should know before I go on that Capone is always going to be there - thank you. For saving me. And, maybe, if you wanted to - no pressure - you could join us sometime for film Friday?”

***

_Elsewhere in the bunker_

“Oh, sorry!” As she walked into a wall of steam and a faucet turning off. “I didn’t see,” Lucy did a double take behind her, “There’s no chair.”

“My bad. I forgot.” Jiya fiddled with her washbag.

“I’ll um…”

“It’s ok. I’m done.”

Jiya picked up her things, heading for the door as Lucy tried to give her as much space as possible.

“I owe you and apology.” 

“Lucy, I’m sorry.” They spoke at the same time, both awkward and unsure.

“You go…”

“No you go…”

Lucy took a deep breath, scrabbling around in her head for the right words. “I went too far yesterday. I had no right to call you out on things that I know nothing about. I’m sorry for dragging you into that.”

The young programmer looked up through her lashes, her eyes still haunted. “It needed saying. All of it, not just the things you said about me.” She sighed, twisting the canvas bag in her hands. “And you’re right.” The words cost her. “There’s a lot of stuff from Chinatown that I need to talk about. At some point. To someone.” She looked away then back again. “I’ve been trying to pretend that it didn’t really happen and that things are like they’ve always been. Rufus doesn’t remember any of it and honestly, I’d rather not either. In this timeline there are no extra three years for me, but even when I’m pretending, the things that happened, well, they keep slipping into my head to try and bite me.”

Two broken women stood in a decrepit old bunker at war with a time travelling villain. It sounded like the start of a terrible movie. If it hadn’t been so depressing Lucy would have laughed.

“Who’d be us, right?”

“Not me, that’s for sure.”

“If I can do anything to help.”

“I think you’ve got more than enough to handle right now.” They shared a wan smile. “Anyway I think, if he agrees, when I’m ready, it should probably be Rufus I talk to about this stuff. He and it are so tied together in my head I think I’m going to need one of his crazy multi-dimensional, _Farscape_ style, paradox inducing ideas to get it anywhere close to straight.”

“Yeah. I’m likely to mix my genres on that and we’d spend more time with you trying to educate me than anything important.”

Another half-smile as they moved past one another.

When Jiya reached the door she stopped. “I owe you an apology too.”

“There’s no need.”

“Yes there is. I remember our timeline. I knew that the Wyatt and Jessica thing hurt you. I was so caught up in my visions and Rufus that when you said you were fine I let it go. I let it ride when you gave up your own space so that Rufus could move in with me, even knowing how much it must have cost you. I was judgemental and unsupportive when you befriended Flynn and tried to include him.” Jiya tucked her hair behind her ears. “A better friend would have known how bad it was for you after you lost your mom and tried to help. And while I don’t remember it I can completely see me agreeing to leave Flynn dead if it gave me Rufus back.”

“Jiya. I would never have expected you to make that type of choice.”

“No. But I should have thought about how often Flynn stepped up for the team once we joined forces and how often we excluded him or just expected him to deal with things we didn’t want to. One of my last true memories of him is in Chinatown asking for his hug and us calling his the creepy uncle. It wasn’t fair to him, and leaving him in 2012 wasn’t fair either.”

There were a myriad of ways to answer that. All the things Flynn had done before Denise had caught him. All the sarcasm he used as a front. In the end she left it as it was. They’d all done things that were less than their best selves.

***

Rufus balanced his laptop on his knees, absently typing with one hand while the other held onto his beloved Chocodile (which Denise had finally added to the shopping list). He grunted as Jiya came in, clicking away until he was happy.

“I was looking into these lines of code and I think you’re onto something. If we adjust the polarity right here,” he tilted the computer in her direction, “I think we can link the Lifeboat more securely to the Mothership. That would decrease the positioning radius and give us a much smaller area to search. Only thing is if we do that the Mothership will enter a feedback loop and they’ll get the same information on us as we have on them.”

“I talked to Lucy.”

“So I was thinking if you could work on this…” He looked up as her words processed. “You did?”

Jiya bit her lip. “She. I.” Lord this was hard. “What she said, about me not talking about things. It’s just.”

“Hey,” He pushed the machine aside, reached up to take her hand and pull her down beside him, “It’s ok.”

She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. “No, it’s not. I spent three years having to fend for myself in the past. Things, not good things, happened and I’ve been hiding from them hoping they’re just going to go away.”

Rufus’ throat worked overtime.

“I don’t know that I can talk about everything right now. Maybe not ever. But I know I need to try.” She looked over at him, relieved to see he was still there, still listening. “Lucy tried to keep everything inside and look how that turned out.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that again.”

“There are things that are going to be hard to hear. If you don’t want to…”

He turned to her then, lay his hand on the side of her face, silenced her with the gentle pressure of his lips. “I love you. No matter what, I love you. We’re in this together. Always.”

***

_Back in the kitchen_

Denise was unloading boxes when Lucy arrived. She was tempted to turn around and just walk away but, tired as she was, she knew she was done with hiding.

“Agent Christopher.”

Garcia, and didn’t that feel strange to say even in her head, had left coffee in the room for her but her stomach pangs were reminding her she hadn’t eaten in what felt like years.

“Lucy.” The older woman ran an assessing gaze over her, no doubt checking for signs that she was going to erupt again. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” She shrugged, wrapping the oversized jumper around her more securely. “Maybe a little embarrassed.”

“That’s…”

“Not about what I said. About the way I said it.” She felt the clarification needed making.

Mouth twisting thoughtfully Denise finally gave a stiff nod. “You were quite brutal with your honesty.”

“Maybe if I’d said it when it needed saying I could have used more tact.”

A resigned sigh. “And maybe some of us should have listened more closely to what you were saying before we got to this point.”

At a loss for words Lucy stood on her tiptoes to get a plate, opened another door to retrieve pop-tarts and set the toaster.

“I’ve got a small team going through the archives. They’re looking at everything we know to see if we can work out a way to undo what Emma did.”

_No matter what you do, no matter where you go, you’re precious sister, the one who disappeared from history, she’s never coming back._

Lucy closed her eyes, willing back the tears. “Thank you.”

Denise’s hand landed lightly on her shoulder. “You shouldn’t have had to ask more than once.”

***

_Two rounds of pop-tarts later_

She should probably have stopped after the first two tarts but she’d been sooo hungry and they’d been right there. She’d never admit it but cooking was something that no amount of doctorate degrees could teacher her. Amy had thought it hilarious that someone as clever as she was could burn water.

Even if she did have to eat the last of the sugary pastry she should definitely have returned to Garcia’s room to do it. It would have spared her the next painful conversation.

“About yesterday.”

Lucy had always loved the phrase ‘gird your loins’ and its abundant uses throughout history but she had never applied it to herself until now. She really could have done with a postponement – like to the end of never – before she had this talk.

“Maybe I didn’t handle the Jessica thing as well as I could have.”

Taking a deep breath she met Wyatt’s eyes.

“But you’ve got to understand…”

“I do understand.”

“And Flynn would have done exactly the same if it was his wife.” Aggressive deflection of the issue. Same old Wyatt.

How Garcia would react if his wife and child were alive again Lucy could not predict. She knew how he thought he would act. She also knew that, no matter what, he wouldn’t have played dog in the manger the way the man in front of her had. “I don’t want to argue with you Wyatt.”

“He’s a God damned terrorist Lucy! What are you doing with him?”

“Stop.” She didn’t retreat, didn’t shout, just looked him dead in the eye. “What I do or don’t do with Garcia is none of your business.” He eyes narrowed, his cheeks reddening as he opened his mouth but she held up her hand to stop him. “You were my friend. I hope that you still can be.” She paused to let that sink in. “And you’re right, the Jessica thing was a mess but I should have spoken up rather than pretending everything was fine. That part’s on me. The choices you made, they’re for you to take a long hard look at.”

“My wife was alive again!”

Apparently she wasn’t the only one who needed to shout things out loud.

“And, yeah, in hind-sight maybe I should have checked before I brought her to the bunker. Maybe I should have said something about her brother. But she’d been dead for six years and nothing I’d tried brought her back. Rittenhouse corrupted her and twisted her from something amazing into…”

Falling into a rut was easy. Repeating well-worn thoughts and following the same patterns she’d spent a lifetime learning would be easy. Reaching out to comfort Wyatt, trying to make him feel better would be as simple as breathing. The time for easy was done though. Wyatt was a grown man. It was time for him to step up. And it was time for her to stop enabling him in this cycle.

“Rittenhouse brought Jessica back. They didn’t force you to bring her here. They didn’t make you screw her at top volume so that everyone could hear you. And, horrible as they are, they didn’t pour all that rage and jealously into you. They did give you a second chance which you chose to waste trying to see if you could have your cake and eat it. If you want to be angry with someone you know where to start.”

“I told you I loved you!”

Who had she been when she had secretly hoped he would say that to her? Not the woman she was anymore. “Do you know how you feel? Honestly?”

Wyatt turned and stalked away, tucked his head into his hands and yelled, took a few deep breaths. “I’m driving in the dark here, Luce. No headlights, off road, no idea where I am.” 

“I know that feeling.”

***

There was quiet music playing in Garcia’s room when she finally made it back. It felt like an eternity since she left. It felt like returning home. 

He was sat in the chair again, feet up on the desk, toes idly tapping to some old big band song as he read a book on Ancient Mesopotamia.

“I brought coffee.”

“Hmm.” He finished his page, dog-eared the corner – that would have to stop – and straightened. “Everything ok?”

Jiya. Denise. Wyatt. “It will be.”

“I ran into Rufus.” He smiled and shook his head. “He invited me to watch movies.”

“Don’t let him choose!” She joked, glad her friend had stepped up.

They looked at each other for a minute, each assessing, each waiting for the other to speak up. Finally Lucy said, “I seem to have done a lot of talking today.”

His eyes hooded, concealing his thoughts.

“Is it ok if we leave our conversation for later?”

He managed a half smile, picked up his book again and nodded. “There’s time yet. Whenever you’re ready.”

In the corner there were haphazardly piled books, mostly about history, a play or two and some pulp fiction. She stepped closer and read down the spines, mildly surprised at the eclectic nature of them.

“ _Mourning Becomes Electra_?”

He deliberately ignored her, choosing instead to take a sip of his rich black drink. His quiet presence, the low hum of the music, the weight of the book in her hand, the smell of the pages acted as a balm to her weary soul. So she followed his lead and sat herself on the bed, pulled a blanket over her feet and began to read, losing herself in another time and place. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, turning pages in their comfortable camaraderie, but she did know that she wanted it to continue.

“Can I stay here, Garcia?”

It might have been her imagination but he seemed to inhale quickly at her question, swallow before he answered. “If that’s what you want.”

He looked over before asking, “Do you want me to take the couch?”

How to answer without it sounding like something she wasn’t ready for? “No. We’ll get another cot if you’re ok with that?”

The corner of his mouth twitched upward and they continued to read. 


	6. A blonde, a brunette and a red-head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've stuck with me this far you have my eternal gratitude. Your comments and kudos have put a smile on my face in this very troubling time.

Being rudely awakened at 1.47am was never good.

Connor stumbled out of his room in a loosely fastened robe. “You know this is torture right? She’s deliberately torturing us!”

“Emma knows our weaknesses. It’s what we get for not knowing she was working for Rittenhouse as well as Mason Industries.” Rufus rubbed sleepily at his eyes, unsure if he’d been asleep or was just in the process of getting there.

Flynn looked disgustingly well despite the hour. “Does she know you only function with caffeine and sugar? If so I’m surprised she hasn’t targeted the big manufactures by now.”

“She wouldn’t dare. She needs them just as much as we do.”

Jiya took up her place by the console. “June 28th 1926\. New York again.”

They all exchanged a glance. “Either she’s got a fixation or she knows something we don’t.”

***

_Hours earlier_

With the smell of coffee tickling her senses Lucy opened first one eye then the other. To say she wasn’t a morning person would have been an understatement. To say she had a caffeine addiction would be fair.

Garcia wasn’t in his cot or in the chair but the steaming cup by her bed proved he’d been there. Despite the earliness of the hour – what time was it anyway? – the idea that he was somewhere about was comforting.

When had that happened?

Sipping carefully at the hot liquid Lucy allowed the coffee to hit that sweet spot, igniting her taste buds while focusing the world more sharply, with the added benefit of beginning to ward off the belief that she was in some way related to a peeved, rapid dog. Amy had always given her space in the morning, lots of it, a good hour at least, knowing how much of a struggle waking up was. Carol had not. Surprise.

Something had shifted inside her. It wasn’t that the memories of Amy were easier to live with but they were nearer to the surface. She’d held them close for so long, afraid they were going to vanish like her sister, that she’d been almost afraid to bring them into the open. Yet now visions of Amy’s laughing face appeared without the slightest provocation. Was it that with the anger vented – not necessarily resolved but at least expressed – there was room for other emotions? Maybe it was having a roommate in the same boat? Having someone to share her memories with? Having someone who listened? Garcia was opening up about Lorena and Iris, trusting her with his memories. She could trust him with hers.

Lucy had sat on this self-same bed once and told him he was the easiest to talk to in the bunker. It turned out he was the easiest to live with too. She’d expected at least a little awkwardness as they adjusted to sharing each other’s space, but for a man that could create chaos in an empty room he was surprisingly laid back. Bizarrely they seemed to bob along quite naturally, no effort required. The man she’d chased through time made the perfect roommate. What were the odds?

In college she’d only shared once and vowed never to do so again. Even with boyfriends the idea of having to share her personal living space had given her pause. And yet when Garcia opened the door - towel round his neck, hair damp from the shower - and smiled she couldn’t think of a single place she’d rather be.

***

“So objectively..?”

“It’s more of a subjective…”

“Then how..?”

“You see…”

“If I did I wouldn’t ask.”

Whatever had been in the drink Joseph Moncure March had given Lucy it had one hell of a kick. Coupled with not eating anything since the pasta some time yesterday, the dimly lit room and the heavy cigarette smoke lingering in the air, she knew she had to stop dinking now or she’d be three sheets to the wind – or possibly asleep - and useless to everyone.

“The woman I was…”

“You are lovely as you are, Miss Zellweger. Killer legs.”

“Thank you.” She smoothed the cream tassels around aforementioned legs, marvelling again that she got to wear an original beaded dress. It was so much better than the imitation she’d worn all those Halloweens ago. “Where was I? Oh yes. I couldn’t honestly say that presented with the same choices today as I was ten years ago…”

“Alas, the world was a different place then.”

“The Great War.”

March took a deep drink.

“No Prohibition.”

“A whole generation lost.”

Even with a rough idea of who Emma might be aiming at – “March left _The New Yorker_ to become an influential poet around that date” – finding him had been a nightmare. When the history books said there were about ninety thousand speakeasies in New York City alone they weren’t kidding.

“But if you had to do it all again?” The quiet, unassuming man beside her asked, tie skewed at the neck, arm lounged along the back of the chair, totally comfortable in his environment. Consuming neat whiskey as though it was water.

“Despite all the bad times?” A nod. “I think I’d have to say mostly, yes. I mean, it brought me here, right?”

“And Amen for that.”

They’d been going round in circles for nearly an hour. It turned out that March had not yet decided, definitively, if he was going to leave the paper he was responsible for nurturing in its infancy. While the idea of spending a summer drinking and writing poetry appealed, he wasn’t sure if it was the correct course of action for him. He refused any notion that he might be in physical jeopardy.

Lucy didn’t want to go with the hard sell – there were numerous accounts of March’s contrary strong will - but if he chose to remain a journalist his quintessential capture of the ‘Jazz Age’ would never happen. Not to mention that if Emma managed to kill him all bets were off.

“Your friend.” He nodded across the crowd towards the three men spread out near the door.

“Hmm?”

“The tall one.”

Stood at least a head taller than most other’s in the room Garcia wore his navy pin-striped suit well. How had she not noticed how good he looked in a suit before? “Oh?”

“Is he savage?”

Lucy spat out her drink.

Offering her a handkerchief March continued, “No offence intended. Its just – the height, the leashed power, that sense of danger.”

“He can have a short fuse.” Lucy’s voice came out as a squeak.

“At you?”

_MOVE! The gun waving in her direction. He’s all that’s left of Rittenhouse. Get out of my way!_

“There was a time when I thought...” She watched him across the room, trying to merge the Flynn he’d been with the Garcia he was. “I was wrong. He’s not the man he thinks he is.”

Her companion considered this for a minute, studying Flynn as he deftly extracted himself from a vine-like flapper in too many pearls. “Curious.”

Honestly, the amount of women who were gravitating in Garcia’s direction was getting ridiculous. She couldn’t remember that happening before but then they’d been on opposite sides so she’d not exactly been privy to his interactions with others. Maybe when she wasn’t there? “Excuse me?”

“I had thought woman preferred men who were more – forceful.”

The rhyming couplet descriptor of March’s lead male sprang to mind. _‘Oh, yes – Burrs was a charming fellow: Brutal with woman, and proportionately yellow.’_ Twenty-first century Lucy rebelled. “A woman desires the right to choose, whatever her preferences from there may be.”

“Indeed.” March raised his glass in a toast. “And long may our great age allow that to continue.”

“Women can vote now but they are still not considered equals.” She argued, remembering all too well the police and the crush in 1919.

“Only by those whose minds are belittled by ignorance.”

***

_Previously in the bunker_

“Moncure March?”

Lucy’s suggestion of a target had drawn a blank with the others. “Author of _The Wild Party_ and _The Set-Up._ He helped establish what we think of when we consider the Jazz Age.”

“I thought that was Fitzgerald.” Connor looked perplexed.

“Absolutely. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda are a driving force at the time but they are touring Europe in the summer of 1926. Whereas March is making a significant change to the course of his life which will lead to a career in Hollywood that launches several famous names, including Jean Harlow. He writes dialogue for the first talkies, heavily influences the direction of film making for two decades, and without him there’s no telling what changes may be made to the cinematic world.”

Flynn slid a pair of brocade, twin strap, 1920s heels across to her. (Finding shoes that fit and that you could run in was a challenge best deferred when you travelled to the past.) “And given the impact of the silver screen, which is used to promote social mobility and propaganda in the 30’s and 40’s…”

“Exactly. The ramifications could be extreme.”

“I’ve never heard of him.” Wyatt groused, checking his weapon.

“In his poem _The Set-Up_ a black, ex-con boxer was supposed to throw a fight. They turned it into a film in 1949. It’s an iconic example of film noir.”

“I thought the male lead in that was white?” Connor asked.

“They changed the ethnicity of the lead so that the film appealed to a wider audience. March famously slammed them for it.”

“And you think he’s important enough for Emma to go after?” Jiya asked, downloading any information she could find onto a thumb drive.

“I think that unless we find a better candidate March’s demise would have the biggest impact on and around the date Emma has travelled to.”

***

It had been easier when he hadn’t given a damn about playing nice. Or about making a scene. Truth be told he wouldn’t mind making a scene if it hurried things up but he knew that a) it wouldn’t necessarily help and b) Lucy would _not_ be amused.

“Are you looking for a friend, chère? Because I can be real friendly.” The young woman whose arm was currently trying to snake inside his jacket had a slash of scarlet for a mouth and couldn’t have been a day over eighteen. She smelt of perfume and smoke, but mostly of alcohol.

Flynn pinched her arm between his thumb and forefinger, lifting it away from him and spinning her at the same time. “I came here with someone.” His voice dripped with disdain.

Completely un-phase she batted her baby blues at him. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

The crowd at the party seemed to be made up of Vaudeville players celebrating the end of the evenings work. Each fluttered from person to person, gaily laughing or singing raucously in corners. The drinks table overflowed and everyone was apparently imbibing their body weight in liquor. Unsurprisingly, their target was reluctant to leave.

Flynn tried his stern voice. “She’s very possessive.” His eyes shifted to Lucy involuntarily. She was still deeply engaged in conversation with the writer, waving her hands in the air as she spoke, gesturing in a way that spoke of her animation. Her joy of all things historical was really something.

The young girl stepped closer, pushing her body flush with his, pulling his eyes back to her, not getting the message. “Your friend looks pretty busy with the bookworm if you ask me. We could sneak away for a minute or two.”

As though sensing she was the subject of the conversation Lucy looked up just then, questioning without asking, half amused, half annoyed by the presence of the bottle blonde by his side. Flynn looked between her and March. She shrugged and returned to her conversation.

“Don’t be jealous, chère. Joseph is a strictly look but don’t touch kind of fella, what with his divorce going through and all. Plus even if he was looking, your gal doesn’t hit the mark. She ain’t blonde.”

Flynn moved her hand again, placing it firmly away from his person, creating what little distance he could between them in the overcrowded room. “Blonde?”

“Some pretty little thing who sings and thinks she looks like Mae West. They say every man has a type.” She bit her bottom lip provocatively. “What’s yours?”

***

_Mid-afternoon, the day before_

“That smells amazing.” Lucy sniffed appreciatively as Flynn held out a spoon for her to try. The creamy garlic scents made her mouth salivate but she was reluctant to try it, having fallen for one of Amy’s practical jokes in exactly this manner.

“It’s not poisoned.” He sounded different with laughter rumbling through his voice; younger, more care free.

Looking at the spoon longingly she decided it was worth the risk, trying not to moan around the flavours that exploded in her mouth. “Oh my god. What is that?”

Garcia went back to stirring. “Nothing fancy. Just a pasta sauce.”

“It deserves an award!”

He gave her a funny look before adjusting the seasoning slightly and searching out a serving bowl. “You don’t spend much time in the kitchen, do you?”

She fished out two serving forks so that she could feel helpful. “I make a mean cappuccino if that counts?”

His laughter was full and deep, his eyes crinkling at the corners. It struck her, not for the first time, that he was a very attractive man once you got past all the snark and jagged edges. Actually he was a very attractive man period but throw in a personality she didn’t want to slap every couple of seconds and he could be quite dangerous.

“My father, I mean Henry Wallace, tried to teach me without much success. Amy could pretty much look at a picture and create a culinary delight whereas I could follow the recipe to the letter and, well, let’s leave it at the results were less than appetising.”

Handing her a steaming bowl he steered them towards the table. “Blood or not, Henry Wallace raised you Lucy. That makes him your father.” He made sure she met his eyes, made sure she understood. “And as far as cooking goes,” he paused as though he’d thought better of what he was about to say, swallowing a mouthful of food before he continued, “maybe I could offer some advice the next time you want to give it a try?” He shifted his eyes away from her quickly. “If you want.”

A sheepish cough came from the direction of the bedrooms, followed by Connor stuttering, “I, ah, I was wondering. There are some rather marvellous aromas wafting through the bunker. Is there perhaps any left over?”

Garcia kicked out a chair in invitation.

***

Rufus made his way to the well-worn seating Lucy and March occupied, antsy at how long this was taking. He dropped down next to her, tugging at his collar to try and get some air. The room must be in the nineties.

“How are you guys getting on?”

March was chatting to two men who were arguing the merits of an all-male comedy act verses the male/female alternative. Someone had found the phonograph and music was blaring out.

“He’s convinced there’s no danger, something to do with a sixth sense he developed during the war, and right now he thinks staying where he is at work might be the best option given his personal circumstances.”

“So exactly where we started?”

Lucy gave a frustrated nod. “The longer we stay here the more of a target he has on his back. If we could find him so can Emma.”

“If he’s who she’s looking for.”

“Unless she’s taking a drive out the Brooklyn to kill the newly born Mel Brooks it’s March.”

Rufus considered the possibility for half a second before dismissing it, choosing instead to look around the room. “We’ve been to all kinds of places but this one’s wild. I mean, not Wild West bullets flying around wild but – did you see the way they’re all over each other?”

Lucy surveyed the room, noting how many social boundaries were being crossed as the evening wore on. “March once said nights such as this inspired him to write. I keep looking around to see if I can spot who inspired Queenie or Burrs.”

“Burrs?” March’s companions had departed. “Don’t know him. Is he a friend of yours?”

At that moment the door to the apartment swung wide and a chorus of welcome rained forth. A party of three entered and were swallowed by the crowd. Wyatt made his way over to the group, that ‘enough is enough’ attitude loud and clear in his stance.

“It’s time to go.”

March checked his pocket watch. “It’s not even one yet.”

“Yeah, well bad things happen to those that sit around and wait for them.” His mouth was set in a grim line. “If Lucy can’t talk you into leaving then I’ll have to find another way to persuade you.” He discretely lifted his jacket to show his sidearm.

Before March could respond the door banged open again. This time the cheers drowned into insignificance as the vision of Emma, red hair aflame, solidified and stepped into the stifling room.

Closest to the door Flynn went for his gun, dodging around people but getting nowhere fast. Wyatt put himself between March and Emma but a sudden ebb in the crowd put him in her line of sight. She smiled widely, sour glee and triumph.

Raising her gun into the air she fired once, legs braced wide, looking for all the world like the epitomy of a brutal femme fatal.

“Everyone out!”

After a shocked pause the stamped was absolute, bodies and limbs jerking into confused motion. Lucy tugged at March’s hand, pulling him towards the back of the flat and the bedroom, Rufus close behind. Wyatt moved with the crowd allowing it to guide him closer to Emma, Flynn moving in from the side, both hampered by the frantic flow trying to make it through the only exit.

“Miss Zellweger, this is hardly the time!” March puffed, red faced, trying to see through the wall of people behind him. “That woman…”

“Is looking for blood. We need to get out of here.” Lucy fumbled with the window catch, struggling with the stiff wooden runners. Rufus put his shoulder to it but the window wouldn’t move.

With no other immediate ideas Lucy picked up the closest heavy object, a water jug, and threw it at the glass, leaping back as shards flew in all directions. She yanked the throw off the bed and wrapped it around her hand, smashing out the remaining glass.

March looked on in awe.

Rufus leaned cautiously out of the window, checking the alley below. The brick beside him exploded as a bullet missed by inches.

He pulled his head back in, dropping down to the floor, bug eyed. “She’s got someone down there.”

They all jumped as the door behind them flew open. Flynn pushed Wyatt in before him, his eyes skimming quickly over Lucy as he slammed the door closed again. Without missing a beat he started to drag a large dresser across the entrance, Wyatt pushing from the other end.

“Her friend brought a tommy-gun.” As though it was a personal insult to his standards of combat.

“Good gad!” March looked around wild eyed. “I know I’m tight but I’m sure that woman is trying to kill you!”

“Not us.” Wyatt moved to one side of the door while Flynn flanked the other. “You.”

“There’s a shooter out the window.” Rufus whispered, coughed then said again at a more normal volume.

Covering the floor in three paces, Flynn slid up against the wall, craning to look out into the darkness. “Any idea where?”

“Funnily enough I wasn’t paying that much attention when he tried to use my head for target practice.”

Flynn rolled his eyes - obviously the first thing you did when there was an unknown shooter aiming at you was check for his location – and peaked out of the window again. There were a couple of doorways and several dumpsters which would make good cover. Playing the odds, he fired towards the dumpsters, watching for the flash of return fire. As he focused on the location of the gun man outside a hail of shots pummelled the wall around the door, forcing Wyatt to duck for cover, tearing at the paper thin material of the interior walls.

“We need to move!”

Flynn emptied his clip as he made sure their exit was clear. He leaped out the window, reaching back to help the others through and down the fire escape. They fled as an almighty crash came from the bedroom, sprinting towards the main road while the tommy-gun rattled shots at their feet and sirens wailed in the distance.

***

Jiya groaned, deleting the last half hours useless work. “Any thoughts on what Emma’s up to?” She desperately needed a distraction. Or inspiration. Either would do.

Connor pushed back his chair and swivelled, relieved to be looking anywhere but at a computer terminal. “Whatever it is can’t be good. I doubt she does anything without a comprehensive plan.”

“Plan or no plan she cannot be allowed to roam freely. She’s an untested quantity in charge of an organisation whose sole purpose is to manipulate themselves into positions of authority.” Denise was grimly firm.

Jiya and Connor shared a look. “Someone’s been at the company cool-aid.”

They busied themselves for a couple more minutes before Jiya spoke again. “Do you think they’ll find the target?”

“Lucy thought she knew where to start,”

Jiya looked at the two oldest members of the bunker and wondered aloud, “Do you think she’ll be ok?”

Denise paused before she spoke. “She seems more like herself right now.”

Once again they allowed their activities to absorb them until Jiya finally gave in and voiced the thoughts that had been playing around in her head since Lucy’s outburst. “Have either of you spent any time with Flynn?” She looked to Connor first, then Denise. “He’s part of the team now and I was thinking…”

Denise shook her head. “He’s here under sufferance. Garcia Flynn is still a wanted terrorist.”

Straightening, Jiya turned to directly address her - sort of - superior. “About that. Rittenhouse set him up, first for the murder of his family then as a psycho stealing a time machine. And yeah, he did steal the Mothership, but only because Lucy’s journal told him to. Apparently there are really specific instructions in there about how to breech Mason Industries security.”

Connor frowned, still unamused that Flynn had been able to get to the Mothership so easily.

“He killed one of the guards and eventually Anthony which was totally wrong, but I was wondering what we’d all do in his position. Lucy’s journal told him which places he should visit and while I doubt she said ’just shoot everyone’ she must have known what he’d do because at the time she wrote the journal her Flynn had already done it.”

Denise crossed her arms, all business. “That does not exonerate him.”

With a quick nod Jiya continued, “Agreed, but I can’t help but think ‘what would I have done if Rittenhouse did all that to me’?” She met Denise’ eye. “How far would you go to save your family? Because I’d go a hell of a long way to save mine.”

Although it was apparent she didn’t want to Agent Christopher thought on that for a long time, the tension vibrating off her suggesting an inner struggle.

“I’m not saying we should just forget everything he’s done but I’m wondering if we should be remembering why he did it.” Jiya shrugged, moved back to her work station. “Because if I do that I can totally see why Lucy defends him and even how they might be friends.”

***

Flynn moved around March’s apartment, efficiently checking security, while Wyatt watched the door. Lucy and Rufus took turns topping up March’s coffee cup or trying to encourage him to eat dry toast.

“You’re certain she won’t try again?” He looked a little shell shocked.

Lucy could empathise. “As certain as I can be. Her entrance guaranteed a good witness description to the police so they’ll be on the look-out for her.” She glanced at Rufus. “Does it seem odd that she made such a scene to you?”

Before he could answer March asked, “She wanted to kill me? But why?”

Thinking on her feet Lucy responded, “That piece you wrote on demystifying Washington?” Which had been inflammatory but award worthy. “It really upset her. She targets people who make such public statements.”

“And you didn’t think to warn anyone?”

This time Rufus responded, “We at the FBI are responsible for protecting you, not interfering with your constitutional right of free speech.”

Lucy silently applauded.

“All clear.” Flynn returned to the front room. He double checked the catch on the main window. “Stay away from the windows for a while but otherwise you’re set.” 

March stared at the four strangers in his living room, as though finally seeing them for the first time. “You saved me.” He looked warmly towards Lucy.

Rufus’ pocket bleeped. “The Mothership jumped.”

Stretching out her hand Lucy addressed the would-be poet. “It’s been a real treat to talk with you Mr March but I’m afraid our time has run out. I look forward to reading your future works.”

“I might still be in danger.” He reached past her hand to finger her hair musingly. “I think you should stay here to protect me.” He got a glint in his eye. “Have you ever considered going blonde?”

***

As the Lifeboat landed they all breathed a sigh of relief, the idea of sleep beckoning them. They filed out one by one, ready to postpone whatever debrief meeting Agent Christopher had planned and just find the nearest available soft surface. Only Agent Christopher wasn’t there. Neither were Conor or Jiya. Instead Jessica Logan stood with a gun aimed and ready.


	7. Repeated Patterns

“Sucks to be you.”

With a gun pointed at them Jessica had a point.

“Weapons on the floor.” She motioned marginally, making sure she always had them in range.

Wyatt stood frozen, his life or at least the more recent events from it playing in nightmarish technicolour. Garcia complied, placing his gun on the ground, taking a discrete sidestep which placed him closer to Lucy, his shoulder starting to obscure her from a direct shot. They all raised their hands.

Jessica cocked her gun and Wyatt reacted on instinct, retrieving then lowering his gun.

“Kick them away.”

“You don’t have to do this Jess.” Wyatt put on his puppy eyes.

Jessica scoffed. “What? You think I’m dumb enough to leave any of you armed?”

Garcia shuffled his feet sideways again and Jessica swung her gun to centre more directly on him, tutting. “Any more of that and I’m liable to think you want to get shot.”

He nodded but remained where he was, half a body in front of Lucy. “I never expected to see you again.”

Jessica’s teeth flashed as she shrugged. “Wasn’t planning on us ever crossing paths again either. Things changed.”

“Jess…”

“Stop before you start, Sweet Cheeks.” Jess winked in Wyatt’s direction. “Things weren’t all that great as we left them and I’ve had six years to think about all the crap you pulled. You could say I’m not feeling all warm and fluffy in the face of our reunion so less is more from you.”

A kicked puppy would have looked less morose.

Finding her voice Lucy asked, “Where are the others?”

“Safe.”

“Where?” There was no sign of a fight, no tell-tale blood. How had Jessica managed to get into the bunker without a fight and leave everyone safe? Unless she was lying.

“Aren’t you just the inquisitive one?” 

Rufus looked like he wanted to say more but Lucy overrode him, a greater concern looming. “How did you find us?”

Tilting her head to the side Jessica gave Lucy and appraising once over. “I’ll give you that one.” She leaned back on the balls of her feet, lithe as a cat. “It took a bit of digging but given what I knew from our last meeting,” a grin for Flynn, “some professional skills, bribery and a bit of luck, here I am.”

“What do you want?”

“Well there is the question isn’t it. What I wanted was to live my shiny new life in peace and quiet. What I got was this place.” She motioned around at the strip lighting and dank interior, disgusted. “Why the hell would you live here?”

“The decor was a big selling point.” Flynn drew her attention. “That and not being on your associates visiting list.”

“Rittenhouse?” Jessica shook her head. “We parted company some time ago.”

“Then..?”

She motioned them away from the Lifeboat, herding them towards the common area. “If you want an explanation y’all need to be sitting down. No funny stuff.”

Once she was happy they were in a position she could control she looked around again, sighing heavily. “Of all the shitty places…”

Lucy had to know. “What have you done with our friends?”

“What have you done with Jiya?” Rufus tried to stand but Jessica levelled the gun with a scary efficiency. 

“Just chill. I dropped a little sleepy potion into the air vents just in case one of them decided to get trigger happy when I came to call. They’ll be awake within the hour.” She checked her watch, nodding, happy that she had her timings right. Then she looked over the four time travellers. “Just in case you’re hoping they’ll come running to play hero though, you should know that I locked them all in separate rooms.” She chuckled. “It should slow them down at least.”

“This isn’t a social call then?” Garcia had his hands on his knees casually but only a fool would think he was going to miss any opportunity to change their positions. “The last time we spoke I was under the impression you were on the precipice of making some life altering choices.”

“Too true.” She smiled at him in what could only be considered a conspiratorial way. “After your little ultimatum I walked away, just like I said I would. Hitched a ride in an articulated lorry and crossed the state lines. After a day or two though I began to wonder if I’d imagined you, or if maybe you were a Rittenhouse test. So I looked into some back channels, you know, those ways of contacting people who are uncontactable and sure enough they were reaching out to me. Said I should come in. They couldn’t locate my handler – obviously – and were becoming concerned. I thought about what you said but, you see, I’d spent my life with them and maybe ten minutes with you while you held me at gun point.” She smiled sweetly as she aimed the gun directly at him. “That was not fun by the way.”

Flynn actually laughed.

“Anyway, I went in like a good little agent and low and behold one of the top people, Carol Preston herself, came to talk to me.” She turned her eye on Lucy. “I believe you may already know her.”

Lucy gave a short nod.

“I hear condolences are in order. You’ll forgive me if I say I’m not sorry she’s gone.”

Knowing how demanding Carol was as a parent then seeing how fanatical the other version of her was as Rittenhouse hierarchy Lucy couldn’t blame the woman before her.

“Anyway, she got all dewy eyed with relief that I was safe, said Rittenhouse had big plans for me, that they’d been building to this day for years and that my time was coming. She gave me the speech about family and loyalty, about sacrifice for the cause and, blow me if she didn’t say I should go back to you my love.” She blew a kiss in Wyatt’s direction. “It was as though she was reading lines from our night in the desert, Mr Flynn. She said that they were building a machine that would allow us to travel through time and bring all of our dreams to fruition and that my part would be to play the loving wife until a new Wyatt showed up, begging for my forgiveness. You know, until she said that I don’t think I really believed you.” She looked at Flynn again. “I should thank you.”

“Getting rid of the gun would be a start.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work for me. You see, I don’t think if I lower this you all are going to be so nice and friendly. In fact, I think the moment you see an opening you,” she dead eyed Flynn, “are going to spring up and try to take this gun.”

“You could be right.”

“You know, you’re almost exactly how I remember you.”

“The joys of time travel.”

“Hmm. Anyways. The point of this trip down memory lane is so that you’ll at least think about what I’m about to tell you next.”

Still relaxed Flynn shrugged, “If you wanted to talk a phone call would have been easier.”

She crinkled her nose, laughter dancing in her eyes. “Oh, I like you.” She smiled again. “I wondered if I would, what with you trying to kill me and all, but I do. You cut straight through to the bone.”

Flynn waited. 

“So I did a little shuffling – Rittenhouse has a remarkable programme in how to lose yourself and never be found again – and managed to convince them that on my return to dear old hubby here I’d actually been involved in a four car pileup and was, alas, no more. Then I walked off into the sunset, Jessica Logan deceased.” She seemed positively nostalgic. “Of course, that was until a couple of weeks ago when I was working a case and came across a Rittenhouse channel quite by accident. It claimed the head honchos were gone and that Emma Whitmore was in command.” She looked to them for confirmation. “I did some training with Emma. It was a real eye opener, but that’s by the by. The message said all agents needed to check in. Now I can hear your brains ticking saying ‘what’s that got to do with me’, right? After all I was DOA on their lists. Only, here’s the thing. In the Cahill/Preston era there would have been checks to confirm I was dead but they wouldn’t have pursued it beyond the reasonable. Emma Whitmore is not reasonable. She doesn’t trust anyone and while I doubt it will be this month, maybe not even this year, sooner or later she’s going to come looking for me and mine. I’ve spent a whole lot of time and energy making a new life for myself. She doesn’t get to come and trash it now.”

***

“This is total bullshit.” Jiya marched from one side of the room to the other. “I can’t believe you think she’s on the level.” She glared at Wyatt. “Have you learned nothing?”

They’d spent hours tearing the bunker apart looking for bugs, or trackers, or traps, or most any nasty surprise Rittenhouse could have chosen to place and come up empty.

“Look, I know I don’t have much credibility here…” Lucy looked over at him, totally outraged. “But for what it’s worth, I trust her.”

“Wyatt doesn’t get a vote. Solves that one.” Jiya turned her back on him, blocking him out of their conversation.

“Hey!”

Rufus shot him a sympathetic look but remained mute. He and Jiya had discussed her kidnapping and how it had come about. Friend or no, Wyatt was not reliable when it came to Jessica. 

“Whether what she says is real or not this could be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.” Denise met everyone’s eyes. “We can use the intelligence she gives us and, working on the assumption it’s a trap, we use it to our advantage.”

“Oh, it’s a trap.” Jiya paced again, shooting the evils at Wyatt. 

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m with Jiya.” Lucy decided. “I mean, the story is different here but still. In our timeline she played the innocent, wormed her way into the bunker, gained everyone’s trust, then in the middle of the night she kidnapped Jiya and the Lifeboat to run back to Rittenhouse. I’m done believing anything she says.”

“I don’t think…”

“You don’t get to think here.” Lucy shut Wyatt down. “Your emotions get the better of common sense when Jessica is around and you make bad choices.”

“That’s not fair! I’ve learned …”

Lucy stared at him until he slunk back into the corner.

Trying to show Wyatt a little support Rufus asked, “If Rittenhouse know where we are, why just send Jessica? They could have had a small army waiting for us and be in possession of the Lifeboat by now.”

Jiya was having none of it. “Or they could be outside waiting for us to flee.”

“Here.” So far Flynn had removed himself from the conflab, sitting instead studying a map he’d dug up. “Middle of nowhere, Maine.” He dropped the paper on the table, pointing to the location Jessica had given them. “It’s a good tactical position. There’s nothing for miles around it so she’ll be able to see anything in-coming. The town’s small. Just a scattering of houses clustered together so not many residents to mollify if you’re working on the outskirts.”

They all peered at what appeared to be a printing error on the map. “That’s a town?”

“It’s several states away from the radius of the Mothership. So if Jessica’s telling the truth Emma is keeping the agents away from her trump card.”

Denise shrugged, “She’s still their only pilot.”

“But she’s only one person. She needs people on her side. If she doesn’t have supporters someone else may try to take over Rittenhouse and they can still force her to fly.”

Lucy wondered if this was the type of soldier Flynn had been before Rittenhouse, before the NSA, before even Lorena. His focus was absolute, his face all angels, as he considered the problem from every side. 

Denise tapped the map. “If this is a trap she’d have taken over the whole town.” She looked to Flynn who agreed. “So once we were within a mile of the place every agent she has would be alerted and we’d be fish in a barrel.”

“I’m not sure there are that many agents left.” He drummed his fingers, the cogs in his brain working double time. “If she’s having to send out communiqués via back channels the support network that used to exist is crumbling. She’s looking to bring in man power which implies she’s not in as strong as position as she’d like.”

“So how does this help us?”

“If we assume she’s going to be there,” he pointed to the map, “then trap or not it gives us a chance to take her out.”

“We might be able to get to the Mothership too.” Jiya threw into the hat, drawing all eyes in her direction.

“I’m not sure…” Rufus started.

“That new coding would bring down the radius we need to search to less than two miles.”

“Yeah, but it would also allow them to locate us to within two miles.”

“It’s something worth considering.”

***

With no one listening to him Wyatt skulked out of the room. Why would he stay where he obviously wasn’t wanted? Yeah, okay, he’d not made the best choices in the past but he still knew when Jess was lying, which she wasn’t. Last time she’d managed to twist half-truths so he missed the signs at first but he’d grown up with the woman. There was no way she could straight up lie to his face.

If the others couldn’t see he was right he would just have to prove it to them. And maybe, when he did, they’d remember who the soldier on the team was. Flynn was just trying to worm his way into their trust and this was exactly the type of situation he would exploit. No doubt he’d lead them into the trap then the moment he got within sniffing distance of Emma he’d turn on them and then they’d know he, Wyatt, had been right all along. 

It would really have helped if Rufus and Lucy could just see his side of things. They were a team – _the team_ – damn it. They knew they could trust him. One little mistake didn’t change all they’d been through together. He wasn’t the one who’d shot at them, who’d tried to kill Rufus, who’d kidnapped Lucy. 

“I wondered how long it would take you.” Jessica drawled from the cot as he unlocked the door.

“You gave us lots to talk about.”

Her lips twisted, pouting prettily. “Any consensus?”

He jerked his shirt straight, going for the official interrogator look. “We decided I should come and talk to you before we made any major decisions.”

“Oh please!”

“What?”

“That’s such bollocks.” Wyatt went to interrupt but she got there first. “What’s up, Sweet Cheeks, are you not flavour of the month anymore?”

“I don’t know what you implying…”

“Sure you do.” She moved in one fluid motion, standing in front of him, eye to eye. “I got the Cliffs Notes on you years ago and apparently nothing’s changed. Flynn told me everything that night. How you betrayed those people because you knew best.” He opened his mouth but she grabbed his chin and shook it side to side. “Don’t worry, I know in your version I’m the bad guy who deceived you and you did nothing wrong. I know you Wyatt Logan, whichever incantation you are. Originally I might not have been Rittenhouse but apparently the last time we met I was and you are many things but you’re not dumb – well not that dumb anyway. It would have taken you a matter of minutes to know everything wasn’t on the level. Did you tell them? No. I’d bet a year’s wage that you thought you could figure it out on your own, maybe even play me and get everything you ever wanted.” The look on Wyatt’s face said it all. “Ha. I knew it.”

“You lied to me.”

She snorted a laugh. “Not this me. I’ve told you everything, straight up. Always have. You just haven’t ever wanted to hear it.”

He crossed his arms, looking mutinous. “Like you told me you were alive.”

“Oh here we go. Poor hard done by Wyatt. Used and abused by all around him while he is whiter than white.”

“That’s not…”

“It’s me Wyatt. I know every shit for brains thing you’ve ever done. Every time you’ve fudged the rules because it suited you. Every time you sneaked the answer to a test. Every god damned time you came home from a mission and claimed you were fine then spent the next three weeks drinking yourself into a coma.”

“I’m not,” He paused, searching for the words, “That’s not me anymore.”

“Really. So you’re not sulking because your friends aren’t listening to you, huh?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s not like that! They’re listening to Flynn! He’s a killer and a terrorist. And they’ve somehow forgotten that.”

“Still finding ways to be mad at others when you don’t want to deal I see.”

Wyatt’s face turned red, his eyes narrowing but Jessica didn’t back down. Instead she studied him for a minute, before seemingly reaching a decision. 

“You know, I loved you. I really loved you. Even though I knew Rittenhouse was pushing us together, I knew you’d be my choice without them. And when you were drunk or jealous or just plain mean like your Daddy, I loved you anyway. Then you left me on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and drove off. And Flynn was there. He knew me. We’d never met but in those ten minutes he showed me my life as I’d never seen it before. And I ran. I ran as far and as fast as I could because when he said he’d planned to kill me I knew he was telling me the truth. I left the only family I’d ever know and I could live with that. But you. There was a part of me that wanted to do what Rittenhouse was asking just so I could be with you, as fucked up as we were. Then I had a little time to think and I realised that’s why I couldn’t come back. I knew that if I did you’d never change and we’d be miserable, just like we always were.”

“I died without you!” His voice echoed off the walls before he slid down the wall, rested his elbows on his knees and caught his head. “They showed me your body and I knew it was my fault. Every dumb thing I’d picked a fight over, every time I’d gotten angry over nothing, or jealous because some guy talked to you. And all I wanted was to fix it but you were dead.”

Jessica sat down beside him, head resting on the wall, waiting. 

“Then they gave me this mission and I thought – I really thought – this was my chance.” He turned his head to look at her. “I tried everything Jess. I swear, I tried everything I could think of. I even took the Lifeboat back to stop your ‘killer’ being born.”

A rueful smile lifted her lips. “Go big or go home huh?”

“But I couldn’t fix it. Every time we came back you were still dead. Then Lucy was there.”

“You and her?”

He dragged a shaking hand though his hair. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.” 

“Same old Wyatt.”

He scowled, “Right after we hooked up you were alive again and everything went to hell. You said you’d give me a second chance and I …”

“Wyatt.” He looked at her. “Did I make you do anything to screw up your chance with Lucy?”

“You wouldn’t believe me so I brought you back here to prove I was …”

“Did I _make_ you do anything? Did I put a gun to your head? Did I threaten to expose all of your dirty little secrets?”

“No, but…”

“ _Wyatt_.” Calling him out like she always did. Refusing to listen to his bluster.

He stopped. She was sat right there, within touching distance. This woman who was his wife but wasn’t, who he’d seen dead, who he’d seen resurrected, who he’d loved and hated, who he’d left his friends at risk to chase after, who he’d decided had to die. He looked at her hair, virtually the same in each of the three versions of her he’d met, looked into her eyes which were the same deal and it hit him. Every offense Lucy had screamed at him. Every loathing look Jiya gave him. Every recriminating sentence Rufus had shot at him. Every time Lucy had pretended she was fine and he’d wanted her not to be, to want him because he’d wanted her even though he had Jess again. Every time he’d known something was up with Jess and had pretended it wasn’t because he wanted her alive and back and with him more than he’d wanted anything in his life before and …

It all came crashing down and for the first time since he’d found out Jessica was dead he sobbed.

***

“The biggest problem is getting in without being seen.”

If they were going to do this, really going to try going on the offensive in the here and now rather than rushing to put out fires in the past, then they were going to need one hell of a plan.

“Even if we could get in we don’t know how many of them there are. Or what fire power they have. There’s no way to do recon either.”

“Yes there is.” Garcia suggested, using that voice that implied the next words from his mouth were about to be the most outrageous anyone had ever heard. “We send Jessica.”

Jiya scoffed. “Like we could trust anything she brought back to us.”

“If we put a wire on her…”

“I could adapt a live stream video link with a tracker.” Rufus offered.

“Then we wouldn’t have to trust her.”

“She’d sell us out to the first Rittenhouse goon she came across.” Jiya pushed the map away, disgusted at the very idea being proposed.

“I’m not so sure about that.” Connor interjected. “Everything she said checks out. She’s been a registered PI in Cincinnati for four years. There’s an official drivers licence, PI licence, no police record, taxes up to date. No red flags anywhere.”

The young programmer stuck rolled her eyes. “Duh. She’s Rittenhouse. They trained her to deceive and infiltrate, remember? They’re probably playing the long game and now is when they activate the sleeper agent.”

“It was a huge risk for her to come here.” Lucy said slowly, thinking about all the other ways Rittenhouse could have used their location.

“Well we were dumb enough to believe her before. They probably think we’ll do the same again.”

Flynn surmised, “Then we’ve got two choices. Use her or kill her.”

***

In their room Garcia was the first to speak. “Are you ok?”

Lucy opened her mouth to dismiss the concern then snapped it shut again, defeated. “I don’t honestly know.”

He looked like he would reach out to her but his arm dropped back to his side unused. It wasn’t like there was any floor space to pace so instead he lowered himself into the chair. “I know it’s tempting to dismiss Jessica’s story out of hand.”

“All she’s ever done is lie to us.” She was angry again and she hated it. All those churning emotions she thought she’d begun to process were whirling round again. “Now she’s here and it’s just…”

He pursed his lips, weighing his words. “It brings everything back?”

_The noise of the Lifeboat, Wyatt on the floor, Rufus’s fear and anger, her terror for Jiya._

“How do we separate the Jessica then from the Jessica now?”

His hand flexed, as though he was trying to capture a thought and failing. “We can’t.”

“So what do we do?” She honestly hoped he had a clue because she was fresh out. “How do we find the truth in what she’s said when it’s all clouded in emotion from what the other Jessica did to us?”

Their eyes tangled and held. “We hold onto what we know to be true. We trust each other. I told you once we’d make quite a team someday Lucy. I think that day is here. Whatever happens now we’ll face it together.”

_Lucy! His feet pounding to get to her in time. The bullets flying but missing their mark. Her broken heart shredding at her insides. His arms around her when he should have gone after Emma. His head resting against hers, willing her to let him take some of the pain._

_Why are you here?_

“You and me.” She confirmed, that bond of theirs no longer fragile and thin but woven tight and gaining strength with each passing second. “No matter what.”

She might not be willing to face what that really meant yet but that didn’t make it any less real.


	8. The Interplay of Shadows

Garcia was systematic, bordering on pathologic in his checks. Clothes. Weapons. Ammo. Vest. Lucy envied him the routine, knowing it to be born from years of battles and yet, as she fumbled the zip of her jacket again, she would have given a lot for a ritual of her own.

“Here.” He brushed her hands away, securing the fastening and the clips at her sides. His hands lingered for a fraction of a second before he stepped back abruptly and inspected his work. What he saw must have satisfied him because he nodded and moved towards his kit bag. Hesitated. Turned.

“Lucy…” Long and drawn out, spoken in a way no other person had ever pronounced her name. He took a deep breath, chest expanding beneath the black Kevlar. “Are you sure?”

There’d been a heated debate about who should go. Jiya and Rufus were still trying to get the other to stay behind. Denise had been all for everyone other than Jessica, Garcia, Wyatt and herself remaining in the bunker. In the end the sheer unknown number of enemy hostiles had swung it so that aside from one pilot and one of Denise’ team to guard the Lifeboat everyone was invited.

Now Lucy saw the same level of concern in Garcia’s face, knew that he thought she’d be safest here.

“I need to be there.”

Resignation crossed his features before he could cover it. Given the way he opened his mouth she thought he might make one final attempt to talk her out of it but instead he handed her his pistol.

“Show me.”

Obediently Lucy checked the magazine and chamber before reloading. She raised the weapon with two hands, as per his instructions, sighted it and released the safety. He moved behind her, pushing her stance wider for stability, easing her shoulders down so that the recoil wouldn’t jar as badly.

“Stay behind me.” His breath tickled her ear. “If things go sideways you run. There is nothing to be gained by letting Emma capture you.”

They stood like that for the longest second, his hands warm on her shoulders, his breath skimming her neck, until the blood began to pound in her ears and she thought maybe? Would he..? Did she want him to?

Then his warmth was gone.

***

They were quite as they made the last of their preparations. Quite as Rufus ferried them, three at a time, to the agreed upon site, just outside their target. No one spoke except for the obligatory coms check. In a way it was easier in the past, Lucy concluded. There they’d established a pattern; find a car, steal some clothes, deal with the small fires that would become infernos if they were left to blaze. Here, the present, was war and she was a novice.

“Jessica goes in first.” Denise had been clear on that. She’d threatened to pull Wyatt from the team entirely if he spoke so much as one objection. In the bunker it had seemed like a decent plan. Now, with the risk of betrayal high and dire consequences imminent everything seemed fool hardy.

“Feeling guilty yet?” The lady in question asked as Flynn ran a final check. He’d managed to hot wire an old truck in the barn they’d quickly established as a base.

He raised an eyebrow, looking out over the fields, checking for anything suspicious.

“Emma might shoot me on sight.” Jessica didn’t sound too put out.

He shrugged. “Duck.”

“I think you should come with me.”

“Then she’d definitely shoot you.”

Jessica hopped behind the wheel and saluted. “She’d shoot you first. It’d give me a better chance to get out.” And with that she revved the engine and drove off.

Wyatt, who’d been pacing since they’d arrived, stopped, watching until the vehicle was out of sight. Anyone stood close enough to him might have heard the whispered words of a long forgotten prayer. Then he pulled himself up, turned and took Lucy’s hand, pulling her away from the others.

“I’m sorry.” They were the last words she had expected. “I know it’s late, maybe even too late, but there it is.”

She frowned, not sure what to say or even if she needed to say anything.

“I’ve been a total jackass about pretty much everything and before this - whatever this is going to be - I thought you should know that.”

It wasn’t a factory reset. Everything he’d done, they’d done, and everything in between was still there but for the first time since 1941 she could see her friend in the man before her.

“Video feed’s live.” Rufus called.

They all huddled around the portable screen he’d rigged.

“Showtime.”

***

“Two check points, two guards at the front and we’ll have to assume more at the back.”

So far Jessica had moved effortlessly through the security. No one had been able to detect a betrayal but they were all waiting for it. Lucy had only met Benjamin Cahill a handful of times but she could see his fingerprints in the carefully recited password, the clever simultaneous hand signals. Wannabe Free Mason without a doubt.

“Here.” Flynn pointed to the far edge of the screen. “There’s a perimeter patrol. So far it’s passed that spot four times.” They watched as feet crossed the screen as predicted.

Denise frowned. “That’s a pretty tight window to make.” She checked her watch. “Less than two minutes.”

Wyatt double checked the tape. “Emma’s paranoia could pay off here. No way are we all getting in at once.” He looked at the map to gauge distances. “Best case scenario there’s no line of sight here,” he pointed, “for a maximum of thirty seconds.”

Boosting himself up to the hayloft, Flynn looked out over the topography, motioning down to Wyatt for the map. “We’ll have to move in pairs. There’s a delve that might conceal us if we’re fast enough but it won’t hide us for long.” He swung himself down, checking the feed and the map at the same time. “We’ll have to move when there’s an incoming vehicle to ensure we don’t get spotted here,” He indicted a visibility zone then moved his finger, “or here.”

They paired up, one soldier minimum per pair. Wyatt and one of Denise’s team, Denise and another NSA agent, Jiya and a third woman, Garcia and Lucy. Their total of eight seemed paltry in the face of the odds.

“Take care of her.” Wyatt was gruff, still sceptical about Flynn’s involvement, about his intentions, about pretty much everything to do with the tall Croatian. When Garcia pinched his lips and narrowed his eyes Lucy held her breath, but he nodded curtly and she felt almost proud. No doubt he’d make sure Wyatt suffered later.

Denise offered a hand shake and a “See you on the other side.”

Jiya surprised everyone as her turn came. The lovers farewell with Rufus was a given, the hug for Lucy, even the lingering backwards glances, but when she chose to sprint back and quickly wrap her arms around Flynn a pin drop could have been heard.

Then it was their turn.

Lucy’s heart raced, her palms sweating.

As they stood in the shadows of the door his voice was low enough that only she could hear him, low enough that she might have thought the words rather than heard them. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

She darted a glance at his stone set features. “Garcia I…”

He turned then, unable to stop his hand from resting on her arm, his eyes from memorising her one more time. “You needed to be here, Lucy. This is what I need.”

Because there was a very real chance something bad might happen and then…

It was instinct, pure and simple, that raised her to her toes to places her lips on his oh so fleetingly.

She met the shock in gaze. “I promise.” She held the look for a beat longer. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

***

It passed in a blur of shadows, of running and halting, of trying to be small enough not to be seen, quiet enough not to be heard. It passed in the thunder of blood in her ears and then in shots as everything went to hell.

Flynn pushed her back hard against the wall as he traded fire with two or more Rittenhouse agents, held her hand harder as he dragged her away from an open position. She tried to keep up, tried to aim as they moved. Her clumsiness betrayed her and he managed to half carry her to safety while she fired to cover their retreat.

Then Flynn broke position, gesturing for her to stay down, stay hidden, as he rushed out and fired with lethal accuracy at the man whose gun was drawn on Wyatt’s back. The goon fell like a sack of stones as Wyatt whirled, seeing the danger moments too late.

“Well just shit.” The Texan’s voice carried before the rumbling of feet began. Lucy tried to see over the lip of her hidey-hole, hoping to help but forced to duck down as bodies flew every which way, moving fast enough to miss one small historian in the dark.

When the noise became distant she dared a look. First she saw blood. Then bodies. None that mattered to her. Maybe later they’d come back to haunt her. Maybe they wouldn’t.

She stuck to the darkest spots, moving as fast as was safe, cautious at every corner, looking behind her with every other step, desperate to reach her friends. The sporadic flashes of light could be seen closer now. The shouts clearer. The smash of glass or wood or whatever else the bullets hit rebounding against walls, rising higher and higher to escape into the world beyond these few endless moments.

Everything was focused around a building ahead, not a stand-off, more a montage of movement. Her friends - her family - were recognisable by their body armour, by the familiarity they’d gained in this war of theirs.

Jiya, with her hair escaping its confines, snapping back an arm, using the butt of a gun to slam into a face.

Denise, shooting from behind an upturned crate, hitting target after target only for them to be replaced.

Wyatt, trying to press forward to where a blonde and a red-head were slugging at each other with fists and weapons and anything they could get close enough to reach.

And Flynn, firing, rolling, punching, whacking, a terminator of ruthless destruction, channelling every drop of rage he possessed to cut down the people who had taken everything from him, to get to the one person who could end this forever.

But even the strongest can fall. One lucky fist. One lucky shot.

Jessica fell first, Emma’s head slamming down onto her nose so that the blood gushed and dizziness got the better of her. Wyatt moved then with super human speed, shooting in Emma’s direction, forcing her to change course, turning her towards Jiya.

No.

Lucy didn’t have time to think before her feet carried her forwards, drawing Rittenhouse’s leader away from her friend. Her shots went wide but they got Emma’s attention. She ducked for cover as a hail of bullets rained down on where she’d been stood, a scream of outrage echoing all around.

She scrambled upwards, darted sideways, knowing every second she was on the floor was a second Emma got closer, wanting to be the one who ended this, remembering her failure the last time she’d tried. She dived behind some packing boxes, pulled her feet in quickly and raised her gun.

From her position she saw Flynn move, no longer co-ordinated but desperate. His feet pounded on the ground while he fired mercilessly, taking out every obstacle in his path, eating space faster than she’d thought possible but she could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice as he shouted.

“Lucy!”

Emma’s voice when it came was terrifyingly close. “Why won’t you just die?!”

The shot exploded.

When the pain didn’t come Lucy knew what he’d done, her heart jumping into her throat, every fibre of her being revolting. He wouldn’t. She couldn’t. If…

There wasn’t any power in heaven or earth that could have stopped her from standing, from looking, from firing at Emma, from rushing away from safety towards Garcia’s form lying prone on the floor. Some part of her understood there was covering fire from Denise’ direction, that her family was drawing in, making a safe space for her to move onwards. Some part of her understood that they were forcing Emma away, chasing her from her prize. None of those parts mattered. Nothing mattered except the man on the floor.

So when he drew in a shuddering breath she collapsed beside him. Hysterically happy. Utterly destroyed.

***

They all needed patching up. They all needed showers. They would all have liked hot water but it was in short supply.

Lucy managed to draw the short straw on the showers. Frankly, she was so caught up in her own head she hardly noticed the cold. She briefly considered drying her hair but dismissed the idea as too much effort. Instead she went via the kitchen and retrieved the vodka she’d stashed there what felt like a lifetime ago.

Garcia’s back was to her as she entered the room but it hit her again anyway. The look on his face as he’d tried to reach her, the despair in his voice. Her throat closed as the ‘what ifs’ played out. If Emma had aimed higher. If she’d been one step closer. If she hadn’t been turning.

It took a minute to realise he hadn’t moved. Instead Lucy watched as his shoulders shook in his tank top, a shirt forgotten in the hands he held over his eyes. She had to reach out. She had to rest her head on his back, wrapping her arms around his waist, trying to provide comfort, needing to feel the life within him.

He startled, twisting jerkily, revealing red rimmed eyes. It was the most natural thing in the world then for her to slide round him. To lower her head to his chest. To count the strong beats of his heart.

His arms locked tight about her and she burrowed closer. Her tears dampened his vest as she breathed in the scent of him, her own grip brutal on the material as she tried to absorb his warmth, repeating over and over again that he was real, that she was real, that they were both alive.

“Draga.” Whispered hoarsely when he found his voice. “Dios mio! You promised me you wouldn’t...” He moved compulsively, checking her for damage, pulling her closer still, trying to fuse them so he could keep her safe forever.

“Emma was heading for Jiya. I…”

His hand slid shakily into her damp hair, using the leverage to tilt her face upwards. “When she screamed and I saw…” Those beautiful eyes of his glazed with tears once more.

She had to swallow past the lump in her throat. “When I saw you on the ground…” She thought she’d lost everything. And in that one terrible moment everything had become crystal clear.

Small though she was Lucy put every ounce of herself into the kiss. Reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck, crushing her mouth to his. He froze but then, as though a dam had finally broken, his mouth moved over hers, devouring her lips.

The slide of his tongue against hers sent shivers down her spine and she instinctively arched into his hold. He groaned and pressed her backwards, seeking more purchase so that he could squeeze all the air from between them, finding the edge of the bed and tipping them onto it. His weight felt so good over her, so real, but the presence of clothes was a nuisance she could do without. She felt touch deprived, as though it had been a lifetime since she’d experienced the glide of flesh over flesh, as though she had spent that lifetime waiting for this moment, this man.

His lips moved from hers. Across her cheek, over her eyes, down her throat to a spot that sent sparks everywhere. Then it was her turn to moan as his hands traced their own path, trembling and rough and clumsy in their speed but there and alive and everything she had ever imagined. She managed to get her hands under his vest, skimming over his skin, trying to imprint the feel of him onto her palms, to burn the sensation into her very being.

And as their pulses sped up, as their bodies moved and merged, they told each other in whispers and gasps that there was love, that there was hope, that no matter how broken or damaged they were they had each other, two halves of the same soul.


	9. Tethers End

Lucy was running. She wasn’t sure if it was away from someone or towards them but she knew she was running. The heat poured off her. Only, that was wrong. She wasn’t radiating heat. Her pillow was. But her pillow was that flat, lifeless, government-issue one, not the warm, smooth, tactile thing beneath her cheek. Also, her pillow didn’t have a heartbeat.

“Good morning, ljubavi moja.” All growly and deep. Merciful heaven, Garcia’s voice first thing in a morning did things to her. Actually, his voice was fantastic all the time but roughened by sleep? They should bottle and sell it. They’d make a fortune.

She sneaked a look up at him, smiling shyly, then smiling wide. It was the damnedest thing but her natural unease in these situations just seemed to float away the moment their eyes connected. She was obviously feeling whimsical because she had a moment to think thoughts like ‘meant to be’ before she pursed her lips and grinned wickedly.

“If I’d know you made this good a pillow I’d have moved the chair months ago.”

He smiled back, all soft and sleepy. “If I’d known there was a chance I could _be_ your pillow it would have vanished, never to be seen again.” Then he leaned down and kissed her, slow and sure.

“Lucy..?”

“Mmm.” She slid up so that their heads were closer together. So that she could reach up to run her hands through his hair, scratch her nails along his scalp. So that she could catch his sigh as their bodies touched and the nerve endings she’d discovered last night fizzed. “Do you think anyone else is up?”

Garcia rolled so that they were face to face, then further so that she was lying back and he could use his height and weight to pin her. 

“Do we care?”

He kissed her again, no thought of moving from their room in the foreseeable future entering either of their heads.

***

They emerged for food, to check on the others and their injuries (nothing too serious, a broken nose for Jessica was about the worst). They made sure to collect a book Lucy had left in the common area. They worked comfortably side by side as she researched and he checked files on a computer Denise would have killed him if she knew about.

When there was no-one about they randomly held hands, twisting their fingers together absently, or he’d reach over to feather a touch along her arm, drop a kiss on her nose. She went out of her way to mess up his hair, more often than not overbalancing as he dodged away only to land in his lap where she could reach him that much better. 

Lucy caught the odd stares of her bunker mates once or twice but they didn’t comment. There was a moment when Rufus looked like he might be about to say something - probably jokey - to Garcia but he chickened out at the last minute. Wyatt kept to himself and the infirmary, staying with Jessica as much as possible, not sulking but not thrilled at what was obvious to everyone but the two people involved were not broadcasting.

All the while Rittenhouse remained quiet, until they weren’t.

***

“October 15th, 1929. New York. What’s she playing at?”

“The 15th?” Something itched at the back of Lucy’s brain, a stray thought that she couldn’t quite catch. “Sixteen days before the Black Thursday collapse of the New York Stock exchange and the beginning of the Great Depression.” Traders throwing themselves off tall buildings. Bread lines. World-wide panic. “There have been blips in the market recently but economists are sure there’s nothing to worry about. They don’t know the entire system is based on credit that’s about to run out.” Why was the 15th so familiar? “Irvin Fisher gives a talk about how the markets are about to improve, which is cataclysmically wrong.” Her voice tailed off as a memory from another life played out.

_“Mom. You need to take it easy.”_

_“Don’t fuss Lucy. I feel fine.” Carol Preston, with what hair was left pulled away from her face, bent over a desk._

_“You just finished your second round of Chemo. You should be resting.”_

_“I tried to tell her like a hundred times already. Just leave her.” Amy, stood in a doorway with arms crossed, frustrated but not prepared to play this game anymore._

_Lucy felt the pressure to try. “Your book on the Harding/Coolidge administrations can surely wait?”_

_Carol slammed down her pen. “I don’t care about them! I’ve found it Lucy. It was right in front of me all the time. I’ve been thinking too big. If I’d just…” She’d tried to push up but she wasn’t as strong as she thought._

_“Mom!” The two girls rushing forward._

Lucy turned to a computer screen and checked. The book was in Carol Preston’s bibliography. 

“Have you read this?” She asked Garcia, skimming the blurb and introduction as fast as she could.

He leaned over her shoulder to check the title. “It’s very dry. Not one of her better works.”

“In my timeline she was too sick to continue.”

Denise frowned, noting the title. “Wasn’t Hoover in charge in October ’29?”

“Yes.” But the book was occupying more of Lucy’s attention. It was in her mom’s style; big players, big impacts, who was to blame and who won in the end. There was something…

_“Amy doesn’t understand.”_

_“You’re getting worked up about nothing, Mom.”_

_“She isn’t like us.” The hand clutching at her, the strength fading fast. “It’s right there. You need to…”_

_“It can wait.”_

_Amy helping to lift her into bed._

_“Who survives Lucy. Who’s on top…”_

_“You’re not making any sense, Mom. You need to rest.”_

_“The drugs are making her loopy. Her Oncologist said this would happen.”_

_Her Mom’s eyes fluttering closed even as she continued to talk. “Before. Out before black… Control …”_

_“Ok, Mom. It’s ok. We’ll sort it.”_

_“Be early.”_

_“We will, we promise, Mom. Just rest now.”_

_“15th. No later than…” Her words trailing off as sleep overcame her._

Lucy’s mind raced. Emma at the Lusitania with so many different angles, days before a major event. Emma in 1926 storming into room for a dramatic entrance that had achieved nothing. Emma in New York again, but not at the main event. Two weeks early. On the 15th.

She slapped her head and started typing as fast as her fingers would move. “I am so stupid!” Page after page scrolled before her as she sought out the one name she needed. “How did I miss it?” And there, right there, in plain sight and so blindingly obvious it made her sick. 

“Umm? Lucy?”

She turned and saw them all staring at her with a look that implied she had, or was about to, jump off the deep end again. 

How to explain? 

“My Mom got sick while she was researching in my timeline. Then one day, out of nowhere, right after the worst dose of her treatment, we found her in the library, working like she was possessed. She was muttering about finding ‘it’ and not making any sense but she kept going on about the 15th. Just the 15th and how we had to be early and out before it got black or it was black or something. It sounded like the drugs talking. After that she got too sick to work anymore but the Carol Preston here finished the book. It’s about the presidential impacts on the economy from the turn of the century, the ramifications of war and the Great Depression. All the things my mom was planning. But somewhere in her research I think _my_ mom worked out a flash point in history. Not a significant world event that would change the beliefs of the masses but a set of individual dates that could be used for some sort of advantage.”

“For Rittenhouse?”

Lucy swallowed, her last images of her bed ridden mom growing darker by the second. “I… don’t know.” The more she thought about it the more likely it seemed though. “If I had to guess, I’d say it would have been her game plan for the Preston’s to out manoeuvre the Cahill’s. She talked about who survived and who had the power. I checked,” waving her hand at the monitor, “and I think Emma’s using my mom’s research. At least a version of it. That what she’s been doing in New York. She set up Nabulio Holdings in 1915.”

“Nabulio?” They all looked puzzled, except for Flynn.

He lent forward, tapping at his own keyboard now, remembering, “Emma has a thing for Napoleon.” He clicked some more. “There. Owners Orson/Whitmore/Vales. Founded April 1915. Producers of small munitions and suppliers of metal products.” He raised his eyes to Lucy, seeing what she’d seen. “She kept us distracted so she could sort this.”

Lucy nodded, “She had to go back to 1926 and change the focus of the company because the war machine was dying and all producers were pretty much wiped out by the Depression. She made sure Nabulio focused on investments for three years while the stock markets were riding high.”

“And she used Moncure March as a target because he was around at the right time and removing him would disrupt the future in Rittenhouse’s favour so it looked like a normal mission.”

It was so obvious now that she’d seen it.

“She’s going back to 15th October 1929 to pull all investments because that’s the last date with enough time to get gold from the banks, the only real currency that will be left in just a months’ time. She’s counting on me knowing it as the date Fisher gives his infamous speech and assuming I’ll think he’s the target.”

Jiya shook her head. “But, and I’m not saying you’re wrong here or anything, if she changes things so Rittenhouse has all that money doesn’t she risk bigger changes like returning to a future where there’s a new leader? Or worse for her, your mom, Cahill or even Keynes being alive, free and in control.”

“That’s exactly the point. Rittenhouse won’t have any of the money. Emma will.” Lucy searched out a marker and started scribbling on the floor. Within a minute she had the fairly rough outline of the Rittenhouse infra-structure as they knew it. With a giant arrow curving around the structure she placed Emma’s company on the outside. “Everything Rittenhouse does is for cause and effect, helping the founding families to shore up their positions, make the world suit the image they want and making the ethos blood over merit. Emma hates it. It’s why she hates me. She can’t win in that system because no matter what she does she doesn’t have the right blood and never will. So she’s not going to change the past to put Rittenhouse’s beliefs front and centre. In fact, I don’t think she’s planning to change the past at all. She’s trying to create a financial base, small and unobtrusive at least initially, that she can grow throughout the last century – where it’s least likely to be noticed by the hierarchy within Rittenhouse and she has the most first-hand knowledge – so that she can steadily build a power base that the old guard of Rittenhouse knows nothing about. It’s why she wanted all Rittenhouse people to check in, so that she knows who’s left, who she can use and who she needed to get rid of.”

***

_October 1929_

The compulsion to stop the merry makers on the street and shake them, beg them to get as much solid capital as they could and store it under their mattresses was high. The suffering most would endure in the following years didn’t bear thinking about and with just a couple of words they could save some of them from it. Of course, they’d be arrested for being total lunatics but if it saved just one family? Wasn’t that worth it?

“You’re thinking too hard.” Garcia slipped an arm around her waist, offering her some of his steadiness.

Leaning close Lucy watched as another group of happy people tripped past on their way to who knew where without a thought for the future. “All of these people Garcia.”

Eyes that saw entirely too much blinked at her. “Do you want me to get us to the top of a building so you can shout out what’s about to happen?” It was the dumbest idea ever but if she said yes she knew he’d do it.

She sighed, feeling the melancholic weight of knowing what was to come settle over her. “Even if we did get them to withdraw their money some of these people would have weathered the storm regardless. The people who really need help don’t have money in the banks to collect.”

He kissed the top of her head before they pressed on. 

The building that housed the newly named N. B. Leo Holdings (Nabulio sounding far too un-American for the times) wasn’t ostentatious by Wall Street standards. Indeed it ticked every box on the ‘please miss me we’re not up to anything’ scale so if you weren’t looking for it there was every chance it would remain anonymous, one more investment firm in a block of hundreds.

A perky secretary took their names and showed them to an office where they were joined by a young man with greased back hair and a pleasant round face.

“Mr Scott, Miss Stonebridge.” He extended his hand. “I’m Henry Orson. How can I be of assistance?” He was entirely too young to be Emma’s sleeper agent. His son perhaps?

Lucy flashed the card Rufus had mocked up for her, holding onto the hope that photographs of the team hadn’t been distributed for those who wouldn’t recognise them on sight. “We’re from the Board of Inland Revenue and this is your official notice of an audit.” She kept her face serious but friendly. 

Orson’s smile didn’t falter. “Okay.” He reached behind him and opened a drawer. “I think this should about cover it.” He held out an alarmingly large stack of notes.

Flynn crossed his arms and glared. “Are you offering us a bride?”

The smile became a little wooden. “Not at all.” Orson recovered. “This here should cover the outstanding amount on our tax bill to date is all.”

Settling into a visitors chair Lucy crossed her legs and steepled her fingers. “If you know there’s an amount owing why hasn’t it been paid?”

Mr Orson coughed into his hand, beginning to sweat around his collar. He cast a furtive look towards the door, realised there was no chance with Flynn there and tried a different tack. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but we recently lost my father, Henry Orson Snr. And as the Whitmore family are almost entirely partners in name only that has left myself and Mr Vales in charge. Between you and me Vales is a little long in the tooth so the paperwork has been sliding just a touch. I’m sure you understand.”

“We’re sorry for your loss.” Although the way Flynn said it made it clear they weren’t.

Orson took a step further away from the larger man. “Yes, well. If you would like to take this as an upfront payment I’m sure any deficit can be handled in due course.”

“What I’d like,” said Lucy leaning forward, “Is to see you books for the last five years and to ensure you are not in breach of the Old Colony Trust v. The Commissioner of the Bureau ruling of just this January.” She flashed her teeth. “In your own time of course.”

***

Lucy almost wished they could have stayed to see Emma’s face when she realised all of her squirreled away cash had been transferred to the Inland Revenue. Truth be told the books had looked fairly legitimate according to Garcia but there was obviously something underhand going on as Mr Orson Jnr had handed over everything without much pressure. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your take on things, Emma was a no show as Irving Fisher delivered his dinner speech and Lucy got to enjoy one of the more notorious economic speeches of the decade uninterrupted. Once they were convinced Emma wasn’t going to target the man who would go on to publish the gold standard work on capital and investment they returned to the Lifeboat.

Jiya got a funny look on her face as she began the start-up sequence, tapping a few buttons before she set the co-ordinates.

“Everything ok?” Flynn asked, leaning back to fasten his own harness after checking Lucy was ok with hers.

“Yeah. There must have been a glitch. Either that or I’m really tired.”

Wyatt and Lucy exchanged a glance. “Oh?”

“I thought it said the Mothership jumped from 1959 but I must have misread it. The data says ‘29 to the present. No big deal.” Jiya clicked a couple of keys. “The diagnostic comes up clean. Time to go home.”

Still, as the launch procedure kicked in, Lucy found herself squeezing Garcia’s hand just a little harder than usual.

***

“Everything go as planned?” Denise was all smiles.

“Yes.” It was wonderful to walk out of the Lifeboat knowing they’d achieved something. Maybe the offensive had been the way to go all along.

“Good.” She turned to Flynn. “Hit the showers and get gone then.”

“Gone?” He asked, his lips lifting on one side. “I was under the impression if I left the bunker the world would collapse.”

The smaller woman tapped him playfully on the arm. “Don’t kid around Garcia. If you’re late again Lorena’s liable to have me shot.”

Everything got very still. 

“I’m sorry?” He asked carefully, sure that his ears were deceiving him, holding onto Lucy’s hand with a death grip.

“Men.” Denise exaggerated a sigh, looking to Jiya and Lucy for support. “You’d forget your heads if they weren’t attached. Now get a move on. Lorena said she’d meet you at the restaurant and if you weren’t there by nine she’d order a crate of their most expensive vintage.”

Flynn took on an unhealthy pallor, his throat moving but no words coming out. Lucy could sympathise. Suddenly there didn’t seem to be any air in the room and, what little there was, was arctic. 

“Lorena?” Getting the name out required a herculean effort, her voice sounding oddly high-pitched.

Rufus and Denise studied the stunned faces of the returning travellers. “What’s wrong?”

“Lorena Flynn is alive?” It was Jiya who asked.

“Well she was when she called three hours ago.” Rufus’s attempt to make light was ruined when Garcia’s knees buckled.

“Iris?” It was the most painful noise Lucy had ever heard.

“Is with Connor.” Denise looked alarmed. “Garcia are you..?”

“Give him a minute.” Wyatt ushered them away, leaving Lucy and Garcia alone.

_My family, they’ll be alive again. I’ll let my little girl jump into my arms. Hug my wife. Then say goodbye and walk away forever._

  
In the most hidden, deepest place inside of her a small voice whispered the hope that he had meant those words and Lucy hated herself for it. She knew how hard he’d fought for this moment, how much he’d sacrificed. And she was so happy for him, that his family was alive. So happy that he would get to hold his daughter again. But she was dying inside too because she knew what happened next, what she had to do.

Sinking to her knees she rested her hand on his cheek, her face desperately trying to form a smile. “Garcia.” Her voice wobbled so she took a deep breath and tried again. She could do this. She had to do this. For him. “Garcia look at me.” He was crying. It took everything she had to hold back her own tears, to say the words that needed to come. “They’re alive. Your family.” She stroked his skin, his beautiful and tortured face. “Garcia. Lorena and Iris are…”

He so desperately wanted to believe it - it was written in his eyes – but didn’t dare. That spark of hope had been extinguished too many times and just once more might be enough to kill it forever. So she did the only thing she could think of. She leaned forward and brushed his lips with hers, swallowing back the pain and smiling again. “Your wife is waiting for you.” 

Although there was no way she could pull him to his feet she stood and reached out to him, taking his hand and helping him to his feet, to a computer so that he could see, so that she could force her treacherous heart to understand, what was real and inevitable. Picture after picture. A joyful family unit. A puppy growing alongside a girl who looked so very like her father. All of them alive. Everything he’d prayed for.

She tried to imprint the way he held his head, the way he smelt, the feel of his hand under hers onto her brain. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and hugging him as hard as she could, hoping that the memory of it would be enough to get her through. At least this time she got to do it properly.

“Lucy I…” There were no words that were ever going to make this better.

She smiled although it almost killed her, stepping away from him even though it felt as though she was losing a part of herself. “You need to go. You’re going to be late.”

He moved like an old man, off balance, his usual grace deserting him. He made it as far as the corridor before he turned, stunned and unable to compute. “I…”

“It’s ok, Garcia. Everything’s ok.” 

_Please go before I break. Please go before I beg you not to._

He blinked back his tears, flexed his hands seeking some purchase with reality. “They’re alive?”

She nodded, praying her voice would hold. “Mmm hmm.” She gulped down everything other than what he needed right now. “They’re waiting for you.”

Still he didn’t leave but stood staring at her, real but not necessarily present, until, on a shaky breath, “Twenty four hours.” 

What? 

“Give me twenty four hours Lucy.” 

_Two people in front of a raging fire. Standing apart in a theatre box. Captor and captive. On steps trying to bridge the gap. Across a fog littered clearing as an axe hit home. In a bar with the devil and the blues. On a bloody dirty floor as the world ended. Wrapped in sheets and each other. In a cold old bunker, an ocean and a breath between them._

“I…”

  
As though compelled he moved back to her, his lips searing, promising something she knew she couldn’t hold him to. “I’m coming back Lucy. You have my word.” 

And, dear god, she wanted to believe him, she really did, because Garcia Flynn had never lied to her. Because she loved him more than she had ever believed possible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ljubavi moja - my love (or at least that's what it's supposed to say)


	10. If wishes were dreams

“Tell me.”

Heads swung in her direction, chairs scraping against the concrete as most stood, reaching out to her.

“Lucy-“

“No.” She waved them off, not able to deal with sympathy, wanting only to focus. “I just sent my best friend and lover back to his dead wife.” She spared a glance for Jessica, no longer sporting black eyes and bandages. “It’s becoming a habit. Now I want someone to give me a run-down on this timeline so I can work out what the hell changed before I find Emma and kill the bitch.”

A resounding wall of silence greeted her statement. It didn’t matter. This needed to end. Now.

Turing to Jiya she started with facts. “Emma visited 1959.”

Behind her Rufus lifted his hands, shaking his head and fingers, knowing what he’d downloaded and reviewed since they’d arrived.

Blinking her agreement with him, Jiya tried to say it as kindly as she could. “That’s not possible Lucy. The data says the Mothership went to 1929 and back again, nothing more.”

“You saw ‘59 on the display.”

Jiya shook her head. “It was a trick of the light. We must have done something in 1929-“

“No. It was Emma. She changed something.” Lucy turned around, facing Rufus, pinning him with her intensity, pushing past the pity to the scientist within him. “Emma was involved in the project at Mason Industries. She was one of the first pilots. Are you telling me she couldn’t work out a way to, I don’t know, cheat our tracking system?”

“Lucy,” He didn’t want to disappoint her but, “If she could do that she’d have done it months ago.”

The turmoil inside of her wasn’t letting up, bubbling and roiling away. She grabbed it, channelling it with grim determination, “What if she wasn’t sure it would work? Or if it would only work in the right circumstances?” There might have been a note of pleading in her voice but she didn’t care, couldn’t care. There was one objective. Nothing more.

It was Connor who spoke up. “Theoretically, if she bypassed the main navigation system and used a fluctuating sub-base to-“

“We tried that once in the simulator remember? It fried everything from here to Canada.” Rufus plopped himself heavily down next to his mentor, trying not to think about how he’d spent hours explaining to every man and his dog from the electricity board that they could fix it while Connor stood in the background cursing loudly and bumping into things.

“But if Emma has been tinkering with it…”

He’d had to rewrite half of the programming for the simulator to get it working again and circumnavigate the old landing protocols and … “Oh.” Rufus got a faraway look, the kind people got when they thought something was impossible only to discover it was merely improbable and then wished they’d been the one to solve it. “She muddied the navigation by overwriting it.” He looked stunned. “She’s a lunatic.”

“And for those of us who don’t live inside your head?” Focus. She had to stay focused.

Rufus tried to explain. “She installed a bridging autopilot, kind of like the one the Futures gave us, but hers is dodgy as all hell, and unstable enough that she could manually drag the Mothership to 1959 for a minute or two, no longer, mid-jump while the data would say it never happened. It’s a miracle she’s alive.”

Miracle was not the term that sprang immediately to mind.

“So, what? She rewrote history in two minutes?” Not enough time to influence events, not even enough to kill someone unless she’d landed virtually on top of them. But she must have done something. 

How had she managed it?

Turning to Denise Lucy asked, “Lorena and Iris Flynn were murdered by Rittenhouse in December 2014. That obviously didn’t happen here so what did?”

“That’s a needle in a haystack question. I mean-“

“Was there a home invasion?”

Concise as always, Denise was clear. “No.”

“Any upset whatsoever?”

“No. Lucy, they-”

“Is Lorena Rittenhouse?”

“Lucy!”

Jessica straightened in her chair, flipping her hair carelessly over her shoulder, the poster girl for who gives a damn. “It’s not like she doesn’t have grounds to ask.”

The blonde and the brunette eyed each other. “Why are you in the bunker?”

Jessica uncoiled, stretching to her full height, casual and ready. “I take it that’s not what happened in your timeline.”

Where to start with that one? “We’ve seen this play out a couple of ways.”

“Fair enough.” Walking to the coffee pot Jessica poured and drank before answering. “Flynn came to see me in San Diego one night.” 

_Tall and hurting. Believing he was meant to die. Focus._

“He convinced me that I wasn’t working for the right side so I disappeared, then a couple of months ago he tracked me down and asked me to come in, said you all needed help and we could get rid of my Rittenhouse problems together.”

“Problems?”

Her smile was dark. “They don’t have a good pension plan, Sugar. You’re either in or you’re dead and unfortunately for me they’d worked out I wasn’t in either category.”

Lucy needed to be clear. “So you’re here to bring them down?”

“I wasn’t before?”

“Not so much.” Jiya answered, voice heavy with disgust. 

“Would explain the side eye hubby dearest’s been giving me since he arrived.” She winked at Wyatt.

Timing had never really been Wyatt’s forte. “Are we together?”

Jessica snorted a laugh, settling back into her chair. “Pretty sure our marriage ended when I decided to play dead, Sweet Cheeks.”

Wyatt and Jessica were still involved in their emotional tug of war. What a surprise. This time though, Lucy didn’t care. Right now there was only one thing that mattered. “How did Flynn end up on the team?” 

It hurt to say his name. 

“What do you mean?” It was Denise in the crosshairs again.

“Our Flynn,” _My_ Flynn. Garcia. With his accented American drawl. With the hard eyes that softened only for her. _Not the right time_. She swallowed it down, blinking back the grit in her eyes, continued doggedly, “Stole the Mothership so that he could destroy Rittenhouse because they killed his family.” He’d used a bulldozer instead of subtlety. He’d done the stupidest, most soul destroying things in the name of vengeance. He’d killed and he’d quipped and he’d damn near obliterated everyone on the team. And all she wanted was for him to be there, beside her, where he belonged. _Breathe_.

“I brought him on board.” Denise frowned, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of Flynn in that role, unwittingly dragging Lucy back from the edge. “He was an NSA asset with a specific skillset. He came to me and flagged some anomalous transactions. The two names that kept recurring were Rittenhouse and Mason Industries. We did some digging and found out Connor here was building a time machine for Rittenhouse. When they threatened my family I took it as a sign they shouldn’t be allowed to mess with time so I quietly rounded you all up and here we are.”

“Flynn worked for you?”

“Yes. We’ve been colleagues for years. Friends. I’m Iris’ Godmother.”

Bingo.

“There. That’s what she did. I don’t know how. A letter maybe? A phone call? But in her two minutes she made sure Flynn’s handler wasn’t Rittenhouse so he couldn’t be betrayed.” So his name never crossed the Rittenhouse radar and he hadn’t lost his family. “I doubt she expected he’d end up working for you but that’s not really relevant.”

“But why?”

Lucy managed a humourless laugh. “Because I just took away her fast track to an easy life and she’s terrified of Flynn. Two birds with one stone.”

***

“Jiya.” Lucy beckoned her friend over while Rufus finished up on the new code for the Lifeboat. In no time at all they would be able to locate the Mothership to within a 1.5 mile radius but Rittenhouse would gain the same advantage as to their whereabouts. 

“Are you ready?” Asked Jiya, trying to conceal a metal ball of some sort in the folds of her cloak.

“I think you should stay here.” 

Not sure if she should be hurt or flattered Jiya stopped what she was doing, debating a response that wouldn’t be too harsh or damaging.

Lucy spoke first. “I can’t explain the effects of time travel on those who stay behind. I do know that we’ve never returned to a place with exactly the same memories as us. Maybe nothing will change at all, but there’s a chance that by staying you’ll assimilate into this timeline.” Sadness tried to creep in. “In this timeline Jessica didn’t double cross us which means…”

Comprehension dawned. “No Chinatown.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got additional teams outside.” Denise appeared, tapping on her phone. “There are two mobile units either side of our current search radius as well.” She looked up, realising they were in the middle of something. “Everything ok?”

“We’re good.” Jiya held Lucy’s gaze a beat longer then turned.

***

He wasn’t there in the bunker to share one last look. The wall where he leaned was barren without him.

He wasn’t in the Lifeboat to help her with her harness. Wyatt sat in the seat that had somehow become his. 

He didn’t make some inane joke about Rufus’ driving. The frighteningly frail ball hurtled through time without a comment instead.

He remained in the present. Where she’d hoped Jiya might be able to forget everything that had happened to her. Where Garcia Flynn might forget as well.

***

If hell had frozen over it would look like this, of that Lucy had no doubt. White as far as the eye could see, grey-white snow storms on the horizon, icicles as tall as trees. She had never felt colder in her entire life. Even the flames from the fire, the walls from the house (a loose term that implied something far sturdier than this structure), couldn’t stop the numbing cold, the biting wind.

Of course that’s what had made Ukraine in the January of 1709 her first choice, but still, if it wasn’t for thermal underwear she’d be a Popsicle with no way back.

“Next time you have an idea can it be somewhere warm?” Rufus bounced on his feet, trying to get some feeling back into his lower extremities. “I know you said it was going to be cold, but I was thinking Vermont cold, maybe Vancouver, not Arctic blizzard times a thousand.”

The winter of 1708/09 was infamous for several reasons. The number of the continental populace recorded as dying from the conditions, the lowest temperatures ever recorded across Europe, birds falling from the skies as they froze to death mid-flight and most notably, for war. 

“If it makes you feel better I doubt we’ll have to wait long.”

“What would make me feel better is if it wasn’t cold enough to freeze us to death out there!” Wyatt had checked, double and even triple checked their location upon arrival, insisting they needed to move but Lucy had stood firm. 

She understood his frustration, a small isolated farm some five miles from Romny was less than ideal from a military standpoint but it would serve her purposes well. “Be grateful we have twenty first century clothing to help. Up to two thousand soldiers a night were dying from exposure out there. Night patrols were a suicide mission.”

“Are we hoping Emma arrives before or after sunset?”

“Before.”

“I know you think you’ve got a plan Luce, but…”

Lucy drew herself up, ready to fight him on this if she had to. “It will work.”

Wyatt shook his head but relented. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling us everything?”

Above the whine of the wind a new noise blew through the room. What little furniture the room had shook with the vibrations and a distinctive pop echoed all around.

Outrage coloured Rufus’ cheeks. “No way did she get this good a location on us.”

“There’s nothing around us for miles. This was the only place we were going to be. Don’t beat yourself up Rufus.” She glanced around at everyone. “You all know what to do?” They might not be happy about it but they’d gone over what had to happen. 

Lucy zipped her coat up over her mouth, steeling herself to pull open the door, feeling the strong push back of a frigid blast as she stepped out into the wasteland.

“Hello Princess.” Some of the smug was lost in the wind but there was no mistaking the voice.

A visceral reaction kicked in at the sound. Pure, unadulterated hate. Willpower alone kept Lucy’s feet planted. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Emma’s nose wrinkled. “So what the plan then? You lure me here and Rufus steals the Mothership? Please.”

“What makes you think I’d be so prosaic?”

“Oh, come on. You’re really not that creative.” Emma flashed her gun. “You didn’t really expect me to come unprepared did you?” Even decked out like the Michelin Man Emma’s battle readiness was obvious. 

“No. I expected you to come with a small army.” The men that fanned out around Emma’s heels proved the point.

The wind blew on, bringing with it the first flurry of the promised storm. 

“What’s to stop me killing you on the spot?”

Lucy would not be scared. “Nothing. Except that you want to rub your victory in first.”

“What, so soldier boy can sneak around the back and try to out-flank me?” She looked to the sides of the building. “Come out, come out wherever you are.” She sing-songed.

Wyatt kept his head down but readied his weapon. 

“You aren’t going to shoot, lover boy. We both know that even if you get lucky and hit me there’s no chance I won’t shoot your precious Lucy too.” Then she smiled. “Is Flynn hiding on the other side? No. Wait. He’s not here is he?” The malice in her eyes sparkled brighter than any star. “How did he like my little present? I bet he couldn’t wait to run home to dear sweet Lorena. And poor little Lucy. Abandoned for a dead wife all over again. I would have loved to have seen your face.”

She forced the hurt down, concentrated on the anger. “I imagine it was rather like yours when you found out I’d taken all your money.” Lucy’s smile was tight. “I hope you didn’t get too upset with Mr Orson.”

Emma spat on the floor. “You just had to interfere didn’t you? I gave you your precious historical figures to save, but no, you just couldn’t do what you were meant to. Well, princess, that ends now.” She pulled the trigger, her gun clicking uselessly. Face darkening with rage she tried again without success, screaming her outrage into the wind.

Lucy felt a fierce stab of pleasure. “It’s minus hell degrees out here Emma. Wyatt tells me that plays havoc on guns with too much lubricant, which can screw with the firing mechanisms. Apparently it’s a common rookie mistake when cleaning your weapon.”   
Emma ran at her then, all fury and red hair, the men close behind, just as Lucy had hoped she would. Wyatt sprang from his position, using his working weapon with effect as Jiya swung out from the other side, firing her own pistol. Rufus used his vantage point in the roof to shoot down on the approaching enemy too. Lucy didn’t have a chance to see how her friends faired, sprinting through the building to the back as had always been her plan. She made it as far as the field before Emma tackled her to the ground.

The first blow was enough to rattle her teeth but she wouldn’t let it stop her. She knew couldn’t win in a straight fight but she had an ace up her sleeve. All she had to do was reach it. Using her knees, her elbows, most anything that would swing she struck back, holding onto the pain, the anger, the absolute loathing this creature had forced into her being and using that as a weapon too. Emma glanced a blow at her ribs but she managed to use the other woman’s momentum to spin their positions, forcing Emma to the floor, kicking out and striking her square in the stomach. Then Lucy was up and running again. It wasn’t far. She didn’t have to get more than a couple of hundred meters.

The second time Emma brought her to the floor she tasted blood, knew from the scream in her arm that there was damage. Still she struggled forward. All she needed was another fifty feet or so, that and a little more time.

Snow was falling in earnest now, the flakes like little daggers thrown by the wind. Lucy tried to think warm thoughts, to stay upright as she leaned into it, the tempered steel in her refusing to let her fail.

“You stupid spoilt brat.” Emma shouted, pulling off Lucy’s hood. The cold hurt more than any blow could. “You think I don’t know you’ve positioned us between two armies? Your mother made me memorise every history book she owned.” She sneered, yanking Lucy backwards again, laughing in her face. “I know there’s a skirmish here today. Are you so pathetic you need an eighteenth century soldier to do your dirty work?” She struck out with her fist, jarring Lucy’s injured arm. “Get it through your privileged head. You don’t win. It’s my turn.” Then Emma lashed out again, dropping Lucy to the floor, grabbing at her hair. 

Lucy covered Emma’s gloves with her own, trying to relieve some of the pressure. Through gritted teeth she managed, “My mother thought anything that happened before December 16th 1773 was a footnote in history.” She fought her way free, refusing to think about how many hairs Emma still held in her grasp. “And you know what else Emma? She only ever looked at the big players in her field if she had to find out anything before that date. Which means that no matter what she made you read you totally missed the significance of this spot.”

She lunged forward with every ounce of force she possessed, using her whole body to knock Emma over, slamming her into the small frozen well wall behind her, using the momentum and the rage to force her further back, teetering her over the lip. 

“I don’t need soldiers.” She was breathing hard but then so was Emma. “The Russian army have burned and poisoned every spot they’ve visited from Lithuania through to Georgia.” She shouted over the raging wind. “Every town and village knows that the Czar’s orders are death to anyone who helps the Swedes. And this well. This well is owned by one very pissed off farmer. An ingenious man who’s sick to the back teeth of being pushed and pulled in every direction. He didn’t want either side to benefit from his hard work so he’s salted the fields, dug a couple of bear pits and oh, just for good measure, he loosened the every brick in this wall!” Then she pushed with all her might.

***

Sinatra sang out from the speakers. His raspy crooning washed over the room, merging with the low murmur of conversation around her. The lights had a subdued quality that suggested intimacy without making it too dark to see your companions. Lucy couldn’t help but contemplate how weird her life had become that sitting at a bar seemed odd, possibly even uncomfortable.

It felt strange to have dressed up, even if all dressing up consisted of was a skirt, a blouse and jewellery. When was the last time she had styled her hair in loose waves that fell down her back? And applying makeup fitting to a modern setting? That was positively surreal.

Of course Denise had pretty much had a heart attack when Lucy said she was going to do this. In full security services paranoia mode she’d cited not knowing if or how many Rittenhouse people were left, risks, assessments and waiting for a couple of days to be sure. Lucy had simply replied that if necessary Denise could call in the whole of the NSA but she was going to a bar. She was going to order herself a drink. Whatever was left of Rittenhouse, she was done with it.

The wine in her glass glowed ruby as she let the world go on around her, content to simply sit. There were horrors lurking in the back of her mind but they weren’t for now. Now was for remembering there was life outside of the bunker and learning how to fit back into it. One baby step at a time.

“Is this seat taken?” 

Garcia’s voice was like whiskey, smoky and intoxicating with just that hint of gravel. Her heart skipped at the sound. Ruthlessly she squashed it down.

“Tell me you have better pick-up lines.” She smiled it, wishing she could hold onto the joy she felt knowing he was near.

He slid onto the stool beside her, waved the bartender over, ordered a drink. In another life this could have been them, out for an evening, discussing a play, arguing over a novel, heading to dinner. The bittersweet possibilities were a killer.

“I should have been there.” His tone held censure, his gaze guilt as he looked over her sling. The doctors said it was a hairline fracture of her radius. It would mend.

“You needed to be here.”

He sighed heavily. “You could have waited.”

How did she explain that it hadn’t been the team versus Rittenhouse? How to quantify the damage they’d already done to what they thought of as, the impact of Emma’s own actions on, everything the evil would-be empire had built. How to justify that in the end Emma was Lucy’s lynch pin and there could only have been one final confrontation, one possible outcome? “Do you want to fight about this?”

The bar-tender brought Flynn’s drink. He sipped it then raised his glass. “It’s over.”

She tapped her glass to his, relieved and maudlin all the same time. “Yes.”

Silently they watched as people moved around them. The opening bars of ‘One for my baby’ played out before either of them spoke.

“Iris is nine.” There was weight in his words, jubilation for the life his daughter lived, an ache for the years he’d missed.

His face was in profile; strong, angular. His shirt was open at the neck. Helplessly she watched as he swallowed, his throat moving, the urge to touch him rising within her. “Did you..?” How did she ask how he explained all this to a child? “Did it go well?”

That sinful mouth of his twisted up in a smile. “She likes YouTube and Minecraft now. When I mentioned Tinkerbell she acted like I’d grown two heads.”

“It’s going to take time I guess.” Her hand moved of its own volition, squeezing his for reassurance, lingering over the feel of his skin beneath her own.

“Lucy-”

She just couldn’t. “And Lorena?”

He brought the glass to his lips, drank deeply with his eyes closed. “We … talked.”

About the past? About their future? 

“I’m happy for you.” She forced herself to swallow her own drink. It tasted like ash.

Meeting her eyes through the mirror on the bar he said, “Lorena hasn’t changed at all.” He bit his bottom lip. “If I didn’t know better I’d have said she was the same woman from four years ago.” A self-depreciating smirk. “Her reaction to my appearance wasn’t quite so flattering.”

A quick spurt of annoyance tried to take hold of Lucy, the desire to refute the idea that he was anything less than handsome. Every line, every scar was a marker of what had happened to him, of how he’d pulled himself back from the darkest of places, how he’d survived and come out the other side.

“She took one look at me and insisted we go back to the house. She gave me this.” He set a leather bound book on the bar between them.

Lucy looked at it rather like she would at a cobra rearing to strike. “You’re kidding, right?”

He shook his head, carded his fingers through his hair. “Apparently when I started to work on the Lifeboat missions here she began to notice subtle differences in me. Nothing significant to start with but every time I came back from a trip something else had changed. Lorena has always had an overactive imagination and started to get suspicious. It turns out she thought I was having an affair so I, or a version of me, convinced Denise to read her in on the basics. As a way to help us both understand the changes in our timelines Lorena insisted I keep a journal.”

“Tell me she’s not making you take it back to someone to start this over?”

A chuckle escaped him. “No.”

The book wasn’t engraved as hers had been but given their history with journals Lucy would rather it disappeared. Fast. Instead, Garcia ran his finger down its spine, a strange caress. “I told her what had happened in 2014. What I did after that. What I became.” He turned to Lucy then, vulnerability in every line. “We talked about my arrest and how I’d started working with you after it.” His fingers found hers, lacing them together, building a bridge between them. “I never expected…” he looked at their joined hands. “She took it all in her stride. Her only caveat was that she hoped we got the bastards.”

 _Emma’s face as she fell. Her gaping mouth. The look of stunned surprise_.

Lucy nodded, wanting to keep holding his hand, wanting never to let go, needing to break the connection as quickly as possible. “Should I say I told you so?”

He looked up through his eyelashes, his tongue wetting his lip. “I told her that I loved her,” _Kill me now_ , “but that I wasn’t in love with her anymore.”

Everything simply disappeared. The bar, the people, the noise. Everything. Lucy played back his last sentence, desperately seeking the part she’d missed. Was he saying..?

“I told her that my four years without her and Iris had turned me into a different man and that man was in love with another woman.” He brushed their joint hands over her cheek. They came away wet. “She kissed me and told me we’d been divorced for three years and that if you were anything like the Lucy Preston from her timeline she’s very happy for me.”

Lucy knew her mouth was hanging open but for the life of her she couldn’t seem to close it. He did it for her, leaning forward, filling her blurry vision, touching his lips to hers in the lightest caress.

“This journal is a love letter Lucy.” He whispered to her, his lips moving on the shell of her ear. “My love letter to you.” He moved back a touch so that he could see her face. “It doesn’t start that way but you’re there, in every entry, becoming more and more important with each page. Every version of me that’s arrived here has fallen deeper in love with you until there is nothing else.” He rolled his tongue, looked away, looked back, a nerve ticking in his jaw. “The night I lost my family I thought I could never feel happy again, but I do. I feel happy when I’m with you. And I will thank God every day until I die that I have Lorena and Iris back but without you… Without you Lucy, everything is hollow.”

Nothing could have stopped her moving then, slipping off her stool and into his arms. She watched his eyes widen as she raised her fingers, traced the line of his jaw, felt the skin twitch beneath her touch. She held back long enough to ask, “You love me?”

His mouth was his answer, sealing over hers, moving with a hunger that burned. When they parted he let out a shaky breath, resting his forehead against hers. “I love you more than life itself Lucy.” He kissed her again, drunk on the touch, the taste, the feel of her. “If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

She kissed him back with equal fervour. “I don’t ever want to spend another day without you.”

His smile was heart stopping. “I think that can be arranged.”


	11. The Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you for reading this far. I added an epilogue because I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

“It’s criminal.” Jiya proclaimed.

Denise looked up from her task, straightening her dove grey silk suit. “It better not be.” 

Jiya waved her away, making an inspection for herself. “No, it’s criminal how good Lucy looks in that dress.”

The small room set aside for the bridal party was filled with love and laughter. Denise was hovering around like a proud mother hen. Jiya, glowing with her own happiness, looked stunning in her emerald bridesmaid dress. And Lucy had never smiled so much in her life.

Stood on the small platform that allowed her to look in several mirrors at once she fell in love with her dress all over again. A cream, 1940’s cap-sleeved, lace-bodiced number with elbow length gloves, set off with an eye level veil and box hat. There had been a minute there when she had despaired of finding the right dress but the moment she had seen this one she’d known.

“I’d ask if Garcia knows how lucky he is but it’s obvious to anyone who’s seen you two together that he does.” The woman all exchanged a smile.

The back of the room had a cleverly hidden window, allowing those inside to see out without the reverse being true. Beyond the walls the small number of guests gathered were milling about, beginning to take their seats. When she’d suggested it Garcia had voiced reservations about an outdoor wedding but looking out now she knew she’d been right. There were a couple of rows of chairs with green bows tied in back of them and an aisle of petals for her to walk down, surrounded by a veritable secret garden wrapping the whole picture in its magic. Right at the end there was an arch where she and Garcia would say their vows, where right that moment Iris was using her small posy as some sort of sword while her mother tried to right the flower that had slipped down her hair and was about ready to fall out.

Rufus was stood close by, tugging at his shirt collar, obviously uncomfortable in the tie but wearing it none the less. Jiya had quietly confided in Lucy that she intended to propose to him before they left the hotel the next day. In her own words, “If I have to wait for him to do it I’ll need a walking frame for the wedding march.”

Wyatt had asked Jessica to be his guest and to everyone’s surprise she’d said yes. In his darker moments Wyatt had said he was over Jessica, that he was ready to move on, but no one believed him. They’d all had their doubts about what Jessica’s feeling were but there was obviously still something between them. However they ended up Lucy wished them as much happiness as she had found.

Looking very dapper, Connor was making Michelle laugh while Olivia and Mark sat glued to the phones in their hands. Denise huffed out a resigned sigh. “The worst of it is they’re probably texting each other. I’d better get out there.” She kissed first Jiya, then Lucy on the cheek. “You look stunning. Good luck.”

When the door closed behind her the two remaining women shared a look. Lucy swept her finger under her eye. “I’m so happy Jiya.”

“Oh lord, don’t cry!” Jiya dabbed at her own eyes. “You’ve started me off now.”

A knock interrupted what was sure to be a make-up wrecking session. Jiya poked her head round the door, chastising, “You can’t be here.”

“You’re not superstitious.” Garcia’s voice rumbled with laughter.

“It’s bad luck to see the bride. Everyone knows that. Apart from contrary ex-pat Croats apparently.”

“I need, ah, just a minute with Lucy.”

Jiya looked back. “Tell him its bad luck.”

Lucy knew it was a break with tradition but, “I think we’re about done with bad luck Jiya. Garcia can come in.”

Jiya smacked Garcia hard. “Keep your eyes closed.” Then she chose to discretely disappear.

“You know,” said Lucy on a soft laugh, “you look adorable with your hand hiding your eyes.”

He cracked his fingers apart, peeking through carefully. “I thought you might want to be safe not sorry.”

She stepped closer, running her hands up his shirt, appreciating the muscles beneath it. “I’d rather look at you.” She moved her hand higher, toying with the hair at the back of his neck. “Nice suit.”

They fell easily into a kiss, then another before they broke apart reluctantly. “Lucy…”

“I know.” She kissed the end of his nose. “Save it for after the service.” She stepped back, did a twirl. “What do you think?”

He licked his lips, smiling wickedly. “How many buttons are there?”

Her smile was serene. “You’ll have to count them later.”

He closed his eyes, muttering under his breath, before growing serious. “I, uh, I have something for you.”

“A present?” She looked at his empty hands. 

“Ah, sort of.” He moved from foot to foot, suddenly all nerves.

“And it couldn’t wait until after the wedding?” 

A brief shake of his head as he looked up at her with a shy smile. “I thought you might want to see it before.”

What was he up to? She wondered, loving the playful side of him that had appeared in the past year. “Ok.”

As light on his feet as ever he moved behind her, putting his hands over her eyes, whispering in her ear. “I love you Lucy.”

Then he pulled his hands away and Lucy caught her breath, checking back over her shoulders to be sure she could trust her own eyes.

Garcia nodded, his eyes bright, so she turned, her voice breaking as she said the one word she never thought she’d say again. 

“Amy.”


End file.
